Fleshmarket Close [Import] [Paperback]

Ian Rankin (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Lt; TV Tie in Ed edition (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752879383
• ISBN-13: 978-0752879383
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,149,711 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rankin at his formidable best, April 6, 2006

By 

Booksthatmatter "Booksthatmatter" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fleshmarket Close (Paperback)

Rankin does not put a foot wrong in what is possibly his most ambitious book yet. He manages to sustain 3, no 4, seemingly separate but highly interlinked plot-lines running: two murders; a missing teenager; and the apparent spoof burial of two fake skeletons. Fleshmarket Close directly tackles racism, asylum and immigration issues in a chillingly frank fashion. What I liked best about this book though was the way Rebus himself has become both more hardened and more humane at the same time - a very effective development. His bitter, give-a-damn demeanor now declares very loudly that he knows the system, the law delivers very little by way of real justive but he's damned if that's going to stop him trying to be its conscience. Welcome returns from characters like Big Ger Cafferty and Siobhan Clarke as well. This really is Rankin bettering his best.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mr. Rankin's Rebus Books Just Keep Getting Better, December 1, 2006

By 

Vesta Irene (the Pacific Northwest) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fleshmarket Close (Paperback)

Detective Inspector John Rebus and DS Siobhan Clark have been relocated from their old and familiar offices to Gayfield Square, which isn't all that far away. It's a well to do district, but close to Knoxland, which is one of Edinburgh's low rent housing development's.

And it's in Knoxland that an illegal immigrant is found stabbed to death. While trying to solve the case Rebus is forced to think about the fact that the powers that be would like him to retire, however police work is his life, he has nothing outside of that, so he has no intention of being made redundant, not now, not ever.

Knoxland is home to many immigrants, legal and otherwise and it's occupants have been the source of many racial attacks, so naturally it looks like a race crime. During his investigation Rebus learns much about the difficulties illegal aliens must face in Scotland. Including the legal ones, like the detention centers women and children are locked up in as they wait to find out if they are going to be allowed entry or if they're going to be deported.

Also, as this case is developing, Siobhan is approached by the mother of a teenage girl who has disappeared. Siobhan worked the prior case of the missing girl's sister three years earlier. The girl had been raped and then killed herself, so even though the case is now out of her jurisdiction, Siobhan decides to work it anyway.

And to make Rebus's and Siobhan's life even more complicated, they are called out to a bar in Fleshmarket Close (Fleshmarket Alley in the American version) where the remains of an infant and a woman have been discovered under the concrete floor during renovations.

The genius of Ian Rankin is that he can connect the dots, make us believe that as impossible as it might seem, all these cases are connected, but of course, it takes Rebus and Siobhan a while to put it all together and that makes for just one very, very good story. Mr. Rankin has given us plenty of John Rebus books and they just keep getting better.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

3.0 out of 5 stars OK Thriller But Long-Winded, December 4, 2011

By 

James A. Anderson "Author" (London, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fleshmarket Close. An Inspector Rebus novel (Hardcover)

Not Ian Rankin at his finest, but still an OK thriller. I found it hard to get into but after 50 pages or so it started to pick up pace and captured my interest. Rankin juggles three subplots here and provides a satisfactory conclusion. Great descriptions of Edinburgh and its seedy underbelly which most tourists never get to see.

I thought the novel was a bit long-winded and could have uswed some judicious editing. At almost 500 pages long, it's a bit wordy for a mystery and should have been about 80-100 pages shorter. Still #15 in the Rebus series is a fine read. I look forward to the final two in the series.