Set in Darkness by Ian Rankin

Set in Darkness is the 11th Rebus novel by Ian Rankin. It is the sequel to Dead Souls. I got it for free from a community bookshelf a few months ago, at the same time as I got Witch Hunt. I had to wait to read it until I’d read The Hanging Garden and Dead Souls.

Set in the late 90s, the Scottish parliament at Holyrood is under construction. Based right in the centre of DI John Rebus’s patch, he is invited to a tour of the construction site. As work continues, a fireplace is unearthed containing the body of a young man. Who is? And who killed him?

Then a prospective MSP is murdered.

Rebus is put on the MSP case with a young DI on a fast track. The two detectives couldn’t be more different and struggle to work together. Meanwhile, two members of Rebus’s team are investigating the body in the fireplace. And DC Siobhan Clarke looks into the suicide of a homeless man.

Could the three cases be connected? Rebus thinks so, but is he just reading too much into it? Once again, his bosses aren’t happy with his ways of working.

There is a lot going on! Siobhan is also trying to track down rapists targeting singles nights and Big Ger Cafferty is back in Edinburgh and looking to make his mark.

I really enjoyed Set in Darkness. It was nice to see more of Siobhan. In the later books, she is given pretty much equal billing to Rebus, but in the previous couple of books, she isn’t around much. Interestingly, in this one, she feels she doesn’t know Rebus that well, while Rebus tells DI Derek Linford that Siobhan is a friend of his.

It was also interesting to hear Cafferty and Rebus talk about getting old. There’s another six books until Rebus retires for the first time (in Exit Music) and he’s still alive, although not particularly well, in another 13 books (A Heart Full of Headstones).

If you enjoy detective novels, you will love Rebus. There are 24 books, so I don’t feel it is necessary to start at the beginning and work your way through. The early books actually feel slightly strange with no computers or mobile phones. But wherever you want to start, I would recommend Rebus and I would recommend Set in Darkness.