(Or: British crime-fiction, Scottish crime-fiction, Scottish fiction, etc etc.) In the 20 years and 17 books over which we have shadowed Rebus' career in the police, Rankin has evolved from a competent penner of gritty, underdeveloped mysteries (HIDE & SEEK, STRIP JACK), into a writer of immensely high calibre, into a writer able to weave together novels which are simultaneously thick with plot and character, laced with subtle themes, and have as their backbone a compelling social interrogation, a tussle between enquiry into and straight, hard portraiture of, a complex city. It would be difficult to understate Rankin's prominent place in the landscape of world crime-fiction.

Cue some Russian businessmen visiting the city looking for investment opportunities, political machinations concerning independence, the mysterious economy-of-truth being exemplified by the girl who found the body, and the large, looming figure of Morris Gerald Cafferty, drinking quietly in the very hotel bar that the poet had just left… Let's not re-hash too many plot details: suffice to say that a Russian poet living in Edinburgh is found rather nastily dead in a street you 'wouldn't want to walk down alone at night' (Rankin's words). Rankin quite clearly hasn't finished with this character, and he clearly hasn't finished with the city either. I would bet my very last penny that in a few years we'll see Rebus again, in some fictional form or another (cold cases, muscling in on Siobhan, whatever). I never believed it would be, and my mind isn't changed after finishing it. Let's get one thing out of the way: I do not believe for one second that this is the last Rebus novel.

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