Officially retired, John Rebus is reluctantly cutting back on cigarettes and alcohol due to a lung infection. But the lack of a warrant card doesn’t stop him from carrying on with business as usual. A casual conversation piques Rebus’s interest in the long unsolved murder of a banker’s wayward wife. Meanwhile Malcolm Fox is approached by the Organised Crime section to be their eyes and ears in an investigation into gangster Darryl Christie. Siobhan Clarke hasn’t quite forgiven Fox for getting the promotion that should have been hers, and she struggles with the recent restructuring that has resulted in her losing major cases.

Clarke just happens to be investigating an attack on Darryl Christie at his home. One of the suspects is Rebus’s old nemesis, semi-retired gangster ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty. Rebus begins to work on Clarke’s investigation. He also finds ways to insert himself into Fox’s case. But after the former detective in charge of the cold case review into Rebus’s unsolved murder case turns up dead the day after Rebus speaks to him, it appears that there is some kind of link between the investigations they are all working on.

This 21st ‘Rebus’ book proves that there is plenty of life left in the series. The fraught relationships between Rebus, Clarke and Fox lie at the heart of the narrative and are just as important as the convoluted strands of their intertwining investigations.

Reviewed by Tessa Chudy