The Hanging Garden (Inspector Rebus Series) [Mass Market Paperback]

Ian Rankin (Author)

Book Description

Series: Inspector Rebus Series | Publication Date: September 15, 1999

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon... The hanging of four French villagers in World War II... The hanging of an old man in a Scottish cemetary... Seemingly random facts linked to one man...

Detective Inspector John Rebus is buried under a pile of paperwork generated by his investigations into a suspected war criminal, and his immediate supervisors are more than happy to have him tucked away in a quiet backwater for several months. However, the escalating dispute between upstart Tommy Telford and Big Ger Cafferty's gang soon gives Rebus an escape clause. Telford is known to have close ties to a man nicknamed Mr. Pink Eyes, a brutal gangster running a lucrative business bringing Chechen refugees into Britain to work as prostitutes. And when Rebus takes under his wing a distraught Bosnian call girl, it gives him a personal reason to make sure Telford takes the high road out of town. Within days, Rebus's daughter is the victim of an all-too-professional hit-and-run, and Rebus knows that there's nothing he won't do to bring down prime suspect Tommy Telford--even if it means cutting a deal with the devil.

A chilling glimpse into the darkest extremes of human cruelty, a page-turning literary thriller, this ninth entry in Ian Rankin's award-winning series confirms his reputation as a writer of rare and lasting gifts.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ian Rankin's ninth book about Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh police is so full of story that it seems about to explode into shapeless anarchy at any moment. What keeps it from doing so is Rankin's strong heart and even stronger writing skills. When a Bosnian prostitute refuses to testify against a crime boss who has threatened her family, he says this about the cops trying to pressure her: "Silence in the room. They were all looking at her. Four men, men with jobs, family ties, men with lives of their own. In the scheme of things, they seldom realised how well off they were. And now they realised something else: how helpless they were."

Rebus is trying to help the young woman--renamed Candice by the young, slick, brutal thug Tommy Telford, who is into everything from drugs and prostitution to aiding a Japanese business syndicate in acquiring a local golf course--because she's about the same age and physical aspect as his own daughter, Sammy. He's also conducting the investigation of a suspected Nazi war criminal, an old man who spends his time tending graves in Warriston cemetery. "A cemetery should have been about death, but Warriston didn't feel that way to Rebus. Much of it resembled a rambling park into which some statuary had been dropped," Rankin writes with the icy clarity of cold water over stone.

Add to this Rebus's involvement with an imprisoned crime boss in a plan to bring Telford down; his continuing battle with drink; the strong possibility that people high up in the British government don't want the old Nazi exposed; danger to Sammy and her journalist lover because of her father's work; and a somewhat strained metaphor of Edinburgh as a new Babylon and you have an admittedly large pot of stew. But Rankin's high art keeps it all bubbling and rich with flavor. Others in the Rebus series include his 1997 Edgar Award-nominated Black and Blue, as well as Hide and Seek, Knots and Crosses, Let It Bleed, Mortal Causes, Strip Jack, and Tooth and Nail. --Dick Adler --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This sprawling, overloaded mystery from a justly acclaimed and usually very reliable crime author is a disappointment. Through nine previous novels (Black and Blue, 1997, etc.), dogged Edinburgh copper John Rebus has been captivating company?a man willing to place career before family and known to find solace in the bottle as his personal life takes an inevitable pounding. In this latest, Rebus's woes are strictly secondary (even as his daughter Samantha lies in a coma after a hit and run) as unsuspecting Edinburgh is rapidly transformed into the crime capital of the Western world. New hoodlum Tommy Telford is taking over, running whores imported from Eastern Europe, conspiring with Japanese businessmen to buy golf courses and selling drugs from the back of an ice cream van. All this upsets Ger Rafferty, the reigning hoodlum, who's stuck in prison and friendly with Rebus. Rebus makes a deal with Ger to take Telford down. Rebus also gives shelter to a suicidal prostitute and investigates the life and times of Joseph Lintz, a retired academic and alleged Nazi war criminal. A supremely implausible piece of plotting links Lintz to Telford's crowd. The evolution of Scotland's capital city into a gangster-riddled Babylon is bold, but all the canny procedural detail that Rankin is known for is lamentably jettisoned for a train wreck of a novel that aims for cinematic epic mayhem but achieves only narrative chaos instead. Author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; 1st edition (September 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312969139
• ISBN-13: 978-0312969134
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #789,175 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Punk rocks, March 21, 2000

By 

Mr. K. Mahoney "Kevin Mahoney" (Punked Books, London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hanging Garden (Inspector Rebus Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

Any novel named after a Cure song must be good. Amongst Ian Rankin's previous jobs was a stint as a punk musician, so this choice of title is quite appropriate for that reason. The title also refers to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. However, Rankin's main character, Detective Inspector John Rebus, does not himself appear to be an article of antiquity or an early 80s throwback (much the same thing). Rebus works in the gritty city of Edinburgh (see Irving Welsh's FILTH). With crime boss Big Ger Cafferty in gaol, a vacuum has opened up in Edinburgh's underworld. Tommy Telford is the man moving in on Cafferty's patch. Rebus' bosses are intent that he should not get involved, and so assign him to a war crimes case involving an elderly Nazi. But then Rebus' daughter is knocked down in a suspect hit and run. Is someone gunning out after Rebus? And what will Rebus do when he discovers the identity of the driver? This is a well crafted, subtle novel on the theme of revenge, with repercussions from the Second World War to the modern Chechen conflict. And Ian Rankin is not a one to provide easy answers. This is a novel which will certainly have you searching your own soul. It's also the best British crime novel I've read this year, and was the winner of the 1997 CWA Gold Dagger for fiction.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hanging by every word in the page, March 9, 2002

By 

Angel L. Soto (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hanging Garden (Inspector Rebus Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is my first Ian Rankin novel and it will definitely not be my last. John Rebus is a complex character who is battling his own personal demons. He is an Edinburgh Detective Inspector who is a recovering alcoholic and who is trying to reconnect with his daughter, Sammy, after many years of separation.

In this novel, Sammy is a victim of a hit-and-run and is currently unconscious in the hospital; a gang war is brewing and seems that the Yakuza might be involved; and an elderly man is being investigated as a Nazi war criminal. Rebus is trying to save Karina, a Bosnian refugee who is working as a prostitute in the streets of Edinburgh. Rankin does an excellent job with characterization giving depth to all the supporting players involved in the story. He focuses on their strengths as well as their weaknesses and does a great job in showing irony on several occasions.

The author knows how to structure the story. He makes use of flashbacks without warning the readers. It helps one to appreciate the then as well as the now. The story is not linear and it helps one to understand the motivation of most of the characters. I enjoyed my first John Rebus novel and I hope that all the others are as good as this one.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dead Souls Review, February 15, 2000

By 

Jim Carson (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hanging Garden (Inspector Rebus Series) (Mass Market Paperback)

The book Dead Souls was my first Inspector Rebus book and I thought it was excellent. I bought it on holiday in Australia and could not put it down until I had finished it. The stories were very real and the situations very descriptive. The plots were good with plenty of twists and I did not work out the endings for most of them until the end. It was good how the different investigations overlapped and the story kept moving at pace. There were no chapters where I found the story becoming slow and I was not tempted to skip a few paragraphs. The characters were real although he brought people together from differing backgrounds, cultures and countries. The released prisoner's character was scary and at times the book was almost disturbing. I will now go on to read other Inspector Rebus novels.