He suspects that his brother John, a Lothian and Borders Police officer, knows or even supports his brother's illegal activities. Journalist Jim Stevens runs his own investigation, and has uncovered Michael Rebus's drug dealing.

Edinburgh has been shocked by the abduction and subsequent strangling of two young girls. In the introduction to this novel, Rankin states that Rebus lives directly opposite the window in Marchmont that he looked out of while writing the book.ġ985. It was written while Rankin was a postgraduate student at the University of Edinburgh. It is the first of the Inspector Rebus novels. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.Knots and Crosses (also written Knots & Crosses) is a 1987 crime novel by Ian Rankin. When Rebus is offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive female psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to miss. But his Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't happy at yet more interference, and Rebus finds himself dealing with racial prejudice as well as the predations of a violent maniac. Scotland Yard are anxious to find the killer and Inspector Rebus is drafted in to help. They call him the Wolfman - because he takes a bite out of his victims and because they found the first victim in the East End's lonely Wolf Street. Rebus is back, this time on the tail of a serial killer known as the Wolfman. Only Rebus seems to care about a death which looks more like a murder every day, about a seductive danger he can almost taste, appealing to the darkest corners of his mind. Just another dead addict - until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks behind the facade of the Edinburgh familiar to tourists.

Inspector Rebus returns in the second novel from 'Britain's No.1 crime writer' (DAILY MIRROR).Ī junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat, spreadeagled, cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.Īnd then the messages begin to arrive: knotted string and matchstick crosses - taunting Rebus with pieces of a puzzle only he can solve. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. 'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you.?' The very first Rebus novel from the No.1 bestselling author.

Knots and crosses rebus