Exit Music - Hardcover

Rankin, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0752868608 ISBN 13: 9780752868608

Publisher: Orion, 2007

Synopsis

It's late autumn in Edinburgh and late autumn in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he tries to tie up some loose ends before retirement, a murder case intrudes. A dissident Russian poet has been found dead in what looks like a mugging gone wrong. By apparent coincidence a high-level delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, keen to bring business to Scotland. The politicians and bankers who run Edinburgh are determined that the case should be closed quickly and clinically.

But the further they dig, the more Rebus and his colleague DS Siobhan Clarke become convinced that they are dealing with something more than a random attack - especially after a particularly nasty second killing. Meantime, a brutal and premeditated assault on local gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty sees Rebus in the frame. Has the Inspector taken a step too far in tying up those loose ends? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, inglorious career, will Rebus even make it that far?

About this title

Review:

Rankin has an unparalleled ability to draw in the reader and make us feel every knock and setback in Inspector Rebus's red-raw life. Rarely has that talent been better displayed than in Exit Music which sees the flawed but redeemingly honest central character staggering towards the finishing line of an inglorious career that has utterly defined his life (SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY)

the main theme of the book is civic corruption by the power of money, money from whatever source. Always up to the minute, Rankin has Russian oligarchs or something similar lurking on the streets of Edinburgh and the murder of a Russian poet is directly counterpointed to the death throes of the real life Russian, Litvinenko... As Rankin percipiently observes, the problem is the overworld not the underworld - words which might well sum up the philosophy of Rankin's whole ouevre (THE SPECTATOR - Antonia Fraser)

The last scene bringing together Rebus and Cafferty, is a sly, ingenious reworking of Holmes's apparently fatal tussle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls - another Scottish author attempting to retire his detective but failing, you can't help but notice. The possibility of Rebus returning is conspicuously left open (SUNDAY TIMES - John Dugdale)

The title Exit Music serves a dual meaning - not just Rebus's exit from the police but also the possibility of Scotland's wishing to leave the Union with England after the recent election results...Exit Music is a fitting end to the career of one of the most beguiling characters in the history of crime fiction - not because the lowering of the final curtain finds the audience satisfied but because it leaves them gasping for more (THE TIMES - Marcel Berlins)

It would, of course, be criminally bad form to reveal the precise manner of John Rebus's final exit - but I think most readers will find the music more or less note-perfect (DAILY MAIL - Mark Billingham)

Throughout the entire series, Rankin's strength has been his ability to get under the skin of Edinburgh's pyschogeography: he vividly describes 'a city...of banking and brothels, virtue and vitriol' where underworld meets overworld. Deftly plotted and awash with sarky one-liners Exit Music is no exception (METRO)

Rankin's understanding of the man in the street gives special weight to the thread of nationalism which recurs throughout the book. It is exactly because Rebus is non-political - his complaints about the cost of the Parliament Building in Exit Music are as unreflective and herd-minded as the average cab driver - that his acceptance of the inevitability of independence carries such conviction (GLASGOW HERALD)

This may be Rebus's swansong but every page crackles with energy. Ian's skill and pawky wit make even the most routine interview a pleasure to read...After 20 years and 17 novels, the old bastard will be missed. Rebus, that is. Rankin will no doubt go on to even greater things (DAILY MAIL - Mark Sanderson)

'a classic Rankin' (Five Star Review) (DAILY MIRROR)

An elegiac tone pervade Exit Music, a timely wistfulness designed to put you off your guard. Hard to say much else without giving the game away - just brace yourself for a stoater of a cliffhanger ending (SUNDAY TELEGRAPH)

Book Description:

A brilliant Rebus novel from the master of British crime.

About this edition

• Publisher: Orion
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0752868608
• ISBN 13: 9780752868608
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400