When the partner of Rebus’s daughter Samantha goes missing, she calls on him for help; of course he drops everything and heads to the remote village in northern Scotland where she lives. In the meantime, a wealthy young Arab student has been murdered in Edinburgh, and DI Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox have their own methods, and reasons, for pursuing the case. And the dark form of Big Ger Cafferty is not too far away from all the ruckus…. At this point in the long-running Rebus series, our main character is long-retired and in declining health (the story begins with him moving to a ground-floor apartment as he can no longer cope with stairs due to COPD), but he is not going to let small things like health, rules and authority stop him from doing everything possible to help his daughter - partly, of course, because of his sense of guilt about his absence from most of her life. I think one could pick up the series with this book and then go back to earlier novels, although one might just see Rebus as a jerk rather than a more complicated character if one does so; in any event, recommended. ( )

La edad lo esta ablandando a rebus. Su hija o llama para comentarle que su pareja ha desaparecido. Mientras tanto Sioban y Fox investigan la muerte de un saudi. y termina habiendo vinculacion entre ambos temas. SIguen los mismos personajes hasta Caferty. ( )

When this book begins we see Siobhan filling and moving crates in Rebus' flat. It isn't until a few beats in that we realize Rebus hasn't died, but has just moved to a downstairs suite since he can't manage the stairs anymore with his COPD. This book contains a lot about aging and new beginnings. On his first night in his new flat Rebus gets a call from his daughter, telling him that her partner Keith is missing. Rebus right away hops in his old Saab, and heads north to be with his daughter and grand-daughter, and to try to find Keith. Samantha isn't overjoyed to see her father, as they've been semi-estranged for awhile, but that doesn't deter Rebus from making his presence known to everyone in and around the town where Samantha lives. In his usual way, and at risk to himself, he doesn't shy away from treading on people's toes, and also is not afraid to muscle in on the local police force and their investigation. At the same time, Siobhan and Malcom Fox are tracking down the killer of a young university student. As is always the case in these books, the two cases turn out to be somewhat connected and Rebus does a bit of legwork for Siobhan and she does a bit of digging for him. I love how Ian Rankin links two investigations the way he does. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and even though Rebus is no longer a cop, he hasn't lost any of his curmudgeonly manner, and he is still just as sharp as ever. although he moves a little slower. I had waited a little while to read this book, partly because I was afraid that maybe a retired Rebus would slow things down. This did not happen at all. This is a worthy addition to this very excellent series. I listened to the book on audio. and found the narrator to be very entertaining, especially because of his Scottish accent. James Mcpherson does a wonderful job narrating, and that added to my enjoyment of the story greatly/ ( )

A crotchety John Rebus is forced to move to a ground floor flat for health reasons, and Siobhan Clarke has taken leave to lend a hand. In the midst of it, Rebus gets a call from his daughter; her partner Keith has disappeared. Rebus drops everything to head north and "help", which generally means annoying his daughter and everybody else, including the local police.

Clarke takes the opportunity to return early from leave and inject herself into the team working on the high-profile killing of a wealthy Saudi. She is annoyed to find herself working with Malcolm Fox, who has been parachuted in by the brass due to the political sensitivities of the case.

I think I'm over Rebus, frankly. Like Conan Doyle before him, Rankin did not have the courage to stick with his decision to terminate a popular character. His second effort, DI Malcolm Fox, was about as insipid and uninteresting a central character as any crime writer has come up with, and Rankin knows that nobody wants to read Malcolm Fox novels. So he opted for novels where the retired Rebus keeps getting involved in ongoing investigations. Every further novel in the post-retirement sequence just keeps getting more and more outlandish in its tenuous reasons for Rebus to get involved, and it is now just getting silly.

When he retired Rebus, Rankin had a truly strong established character to build a new series around: DI Siobhan Clarke. Rather than do that, he has turned Clarke into a character who needs Rebus to come out of retirement to solve her cases for her, and who relies on the influence of her senior boyfriend to look after her job placements. One can only speculate as to why he has done this, but with each passing Rebus novel, the explanation is looking less and less palatable. ( )

Non proprio il miglior romanzo di Rankin.
Abbiamo un John Rebus (in pensione) e una Siobhan Clarke impegnati in due indagini per due crimini che sembrano avere un punto di contatto.
Finale un po' stiracchiato; consigliato solo ai fans dei protagonisti. ( )