Customer Reviews

A Question of Blood

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ian Rankin has written his 19th book. This is the 16th novel in the Inspector Rebus series. Inspector John Rebus is a man with a rakish sense of humour and a dry wit. He is a loner. He has a past, and we are given a glimpse every now and then. He is as finely wrought a character as I have seen. He is a man after my own heart. I have always wanted to be a spy in the CIA and this comes close enough.

Rebus is in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. It appears that Rebus has scalded both hands and infection has set in. Did this happen as he says by putting his hands in scalding water for too long a period of time? It would appear that this might be too coincidental since Fairstone, a man who was stalking Detective Sargeant Siobhan Clarke, has just died in a fire. Siobhan is also wondering if Rebus came to her defense and killed the man.

Detective Clarke is here in hospital to relate to Rebus the horrible events that have just happened in South Queensbury. An ex-SAS or army man had walked into a private school, turned his gun on three young men and then killed himself. What was this slaughter all about? What was the motive, was it revenge?

Rebus is called upon by Detective Inspector Bobby Hogan to come to Queensbury to assist him in the investigation. Rebus is an ex-army man himself and may have insight into the why's and where's.
Siobhan must accompany him since he cannot drive. His hands are bandaged and he is taking medication with his whiskey to stave off the pain.

There is no mystery about whodunit. A creep, a loner, an army veteran who got his kicks out of terrifying the local teenagers in his speedboat. A man gone mad? Were the killings random? Why did this man bypass other rooms and go directly to the student lounge? With his superiors breathing down his neck, Rebus immerses himself into the investigation. He finds a family link and is drawn into the questions, "why does a man kill, is it a matter of revenge or a question of blood?"

This is about as good as it gets in a Rebus novel. The characters are finely drawn, dark and gritty. The storyline is carefully detailed. We get a closer and more intimate look at Rebus the man. Bring 'em on Ian Rankin, you have only just begun! prisrob

These remarks are directed to REBUS FANS. If you are new to Rebus, it is good to read the Rebus books in order, but if you have never read one, this book is an excellent story and is a great stand alone.

Others already provided story lines, so I won't repeat that here.
What you really want to know is, Is "A Question of Blood" a good DI John Rebus book? The answer is a very definite "Yes."

Rebus fans will welcome this addition to the Rebus series. "A Question of Blood" is Rankin's best one yet.

I thought I figured out the answers, but I was only partially correct. Rankin did an excellent job of twisting up the ending. Each facit of the story could have been developed into a great book itself.

I especially enjoyed Rebus's sense of humor in this book. Rebus was in serious trouble, and his humor wasn't meant to be funny per se, but knowing the character Rebus, his wry remarks were hilarious. I never laugh at books trying to make me laugh, but Rankin knows how to stimulate and activate my sense of humor while keeping up the intensity pressure.

Why I thought this was Rankin's best Rebus: I was able to stay connected to the story and all its sidelines and was able to visualize Rebus and the other characters as real people. I did not want the story to end.

I'm not sure if I really understood the parting shot, or if it was meant to be a mystery in and of itself(?). Good for discussion.

TO IAN RANKIN: Please don't put Rebus out to pasture yet. Let him stay around awhile before you pension or kill him off. I'd like to see him work a few more years before he needs a cane, though (in other words, slow down the aging some). And, I hope that army duo will reappear in another story to cause the hero some grief.

Great story. Great author. Five stars. Do you want to buy this book? Yes.

The strength of Rankin's works is the realistic outlook of John Rebus and Siobhan Clarke: in a society that operates by mechnical principle, they are purely organic and in fact feral, which is what keeps them devoted to truth (in a world where lies are publically rewarded) and allows them to solve mysteries with several layers of implication. Rankin's layering technique is flawless, and his mysteries relatively realistic and logical, which combined with actors who are likable characterizations of threads of thought required to find a balance between society and soul, make for a powerful and fun read. We the readers feel we could live in this world, and even more, we want to, since these characters fight the same quintessential adaptation-or-conflict seesaw we ourselves must undergo. For those who non-critically enjoy a solid mystery that feels as if it could happen in our newspapers, if not our world, Rankin has produced another treat.

A former soldier charges into a high school and shoots three students, leaving two for dead, and then kills himself. John Rebus and his partner Siobhan Clarke set out to investigate why this man did what he did, all the while dealing with allegations that Rebus himself has murdered a local thug who had been harassing Clarke. A Question of Blood explores the two mysteries, twines them togehter, all the while telling an excellent, compelling, gripping story. Ian Rankin is a talented writer--the writing is good, the dialog is excellent and the story works, keeping you guessing up until the last pages of the novel. This is the first of Rankin's novels that I have read and it certainly is impressive. Rebus is an complicated and entertaining character--a bit of a cynic, and certainly not one to tow the line. All in all, A Question of Blood is a terrific mystery.

Rankin's latest begins straight off, plumping us right in the middle of the plot, and has a pace that continues in that vein, right until the shocking end. It starts with Rebus, in hospital, hands burned and bandaged following a severe scalding from hot bathwater. Or so he says. He is about to be called into a case that will question his notions of family, his past, his future, and his present. There has been a horrific shooting incident at a private school just north of Edinburgh: three people are dead, one injured. After his rampage, the killer - who was, like Rebus, ex-army - turned the gun on himself. As everyone puts it, "there's no mystery, except the why".

Given his army background, Rebus is asked to advise, on the quiet, to try and give some insight into what made this man go so catastrophically off the rails. Rebus becomes fascinated with the dead man and his motives, and when the military police start sniffing around it makes him suspect that this thing might go a lot deeper than at first it seems.

But, before very long, Rebus too finds himself under investigation. A petty criminal who had been stalking and harassing his colleague and friend Siobhan (pronounced "Shivawn". As one character puts it, "So that's how it's spelt.") Clarke has been found burnt to death in his home. And not everyone is prepared to believe Rebus's excuses for his injuries...

For me, at least, this is surely going to be a crime novel of the year. Rankin (so good he has already been awarded an OBE) has produced another outstanding novel of "Scots noir", which is sure to only cement his immense reputation among his fans as well as garnering him a good few more.

His prose, which is as smooth and hard as marble, and plots work like an acid, gradually corroding the genial touristy facade of the city and showing us the dark oily mechanics beneath. His writing is crisp and powerful, building atmosphere and character with a deceptive ease. His dialogue is sharp and realistic, often very clever, while his plotting is thick and complex. Everything hangs together beautifully.

As a Rebus novel, this one is, if not quite the strongest, definitely unique. There's no real whodunnit type mystery here, but Rankin makes the whydunnit aspects just as fascinating. Also fascinating is Rebus himself, who increasingly understands the criminals more than he understands those around him, and who is ever so slightly disturbed by the parallels he sees between himself and the killer. The most interesting protagonist in the genre, he continues to grow and evolve as he ages, becoming softer yet harder at the same time, if at all possible, while still retaining the dark "lonerness" that has endeared him to so very many. However, this time around the fascination of Rebus himself is almost equal to the fascination of his increasingly complex and interesting relationship with his colleague DS Clarke (who is pretty darn interesting just by her self, busily avoiding social contact and living in a style eerily similar to that of her boss) which here sometimes threatens to become the main psychological draw of the story, rather than Rebus. This has been in the coming for several books now. At times he seems fatherly towards her, at times merely friendly (which is in itself unusual) and at times we realise just how much he has come to care, even though he doesn't always seem to know it himself. A particularly interesting happening here is how Clarke is forced to accompany him everywhere and act as his "hands". ("How will you go to the toilet?" "A man's got to do what a man's got to do.")

A Question of Blood, appropriately full of themes of blood, literal and metaphorical, familial and diseased, is an outstanding novel, dark, edgy and fascinating. This is Rankin at his strongest, and that is something indeed.

All of South Queensferry is in shock when Lee Herdman walks into a private school (Port Edgar Academy) one day and opens fire in the student lounge killing two boys one day. Since Herdman was an ex-army man, everyone assumes that he just snapped one day. However, the police still need to try and establish what chain of events led to the shooting. So an overworked DI Bobby Hogan who's in charge of the case decides to draft Rebus onto the team. Rebus however is being investigated because of his connection in the suspicious death of an ex-con (with a tendency for violence) who was stalking Rebus's partner DS Siobhan Clarke for a while now. Relieved to have something else on their minds aside from the impending internal investigation, both Rebus and Siobhan throw themselves completely into investigating Herdman's past and everyone he had a relationship with. But with the military police showing a sudden and profound interest in the case, Rebus begins to wonder about what's really going on, esp when he discovers the ties Herdman had with certain prominent families of South Queensferry...

Ian Rankin comes up trumps again! And while this latest Rebus installment is not the usual fare (as others have noted it's not much of a whodunit kind of novel), it still made for compelling and engrossing reading. Ian Rankin is an absolute wonder at creating scenes, characters and atmosphere, and coming up with a story that's unique and complex. So that even though I did begin to see which way the investigation was going, and even though the ending didn't really explain completely why the shooter did what he did, I would still rate this latest Rebus novel as a 5 star read. As usual there is Rankin's clever and witty prose/dialogue to enjoy; and I rather liked that you really got to enjoy and appreciate the good and close relationship that Rebus and Siobhan have -- a friendship that's affectionate but (thank goodness) free of sexual tensions. So yes, this is a book worth buying and recommending as an excellent read.

The story starts with Detective Inspector John Rebus in the hospital with scalded hands or so that is his story. It seems that the petty criminal that has been stalking his colleague Siobhan Clarke has been found burnt to death in his home. Rebus is known to be protective of the people he cares about so that his hands are burned is suspicious. Despite his possible culpability, he is called into a case involving a horrific shooting at a private school. Two seventeen-year olds are dead along with the gunman, an ex-Army loner. Being ex-military himself, Rebus becomes fascinated with the case.

Ian Rankin writes some of the best crime fiction around. His stories are realistic and his character portrayals emphasize much of the darker side of human nature. Rebus himself is not really a very likable character, but he seems very real. While this is not my favorite Rebus novel, the story does hook you in and does not let go until the last page. Rankin can always be counted on to tell a fascinating tale.

This was my first Inspector Rebus novel and I suppose I should have started at the beginning of the series. The plot was quite interesting given that you knew from the beginning who committed the cime, you just didn't know why. But I had a difficult time getting into the flow of the story. I was easily distracted and found myself re-reading pages. That said, I did stick with it and enjoyed the second half of the book. Even though Rebus appears to want to be unlikeable, I did like his character. He was certainly not afraid of tackling things his own way!

There were several sub-plots in this story that kept me hopping to keep up. The author had several good twists in the main plot and I was quite surprised with the ending! All in all, a good read.

"A Question of Blood" (Ian Rankin's 14th John Rebus novel) is a complicated police procedural told in seven parts, one part for each day it takes Rebus and Siobhan Clarke to close the books on the Edinburgh school shooting that claims the lives of two students. The case does not appear to be a difficult one because one of the three students in the room at the time of the murders has survived to tell what he saw and the alleged murderer, an outsider, has killed himself at the scene. For Rebus and his Edinburgh police colleagues it is a question of why, not who.

John Rebus, always the outsider even among his peers, is determined to answer that question and soon finds himself in conflict not only with certain of his fellow officers but with two Army investigators that seem determined to cause him as much personal grief as possible. For a loner, though, Rebus does have one or two loyal friends willing to cover his back when he needs it most. One of those friends is in charge of the school shooting investigation and is willing to use Rebus in an "unofficial" capacity even though, midway through the investigation, Rebus has been suspended by his superiors. The other is Siobhan Clarke, the young policewoman for whom Rebus has formed a rather unlikely attachment.

It is precisely this emotional attachment to Siobhan that gets Rebus into so much trouble. He is so determined to stop the career criminal that has been threatening her that one night he is seen leaving the man's home at precisely the wrong moment. As a result of this connection to the stalker, if Rebus is to figure out the why of the school murders, he is going to have to avoid the phone calls and visits of the investigators whose job it is to determine whether or not he is guilty of violent criminal activity.

"A Question of Blood," at its heart, is a book about relationships, families, loners and friends. John Rebus is not close to anyone in his family and can count his friends on one hand. In his own way, he probably loves Siobhan Clarke but there is no way he ever could, or would, express his feelings to her. Some of his friends are much like Rebus; they spend too much time in pubs or sitting alone at home drinking themselves toward the next hangover - and they rather enjoy the lifestyle.

Rankin's Edinburgh is the perfect city for loners. It is a dark, wet and rowdy place, and its streets are populated by teenage thugs that respect no one unwilling to mix it up with them. Rebus can only stomach what he sees because of his deep sense of outrage about what is happening to his city and those around him. Police work is all he has left and, even though he does as much as he can to protect the innocents of Edinburgh, he senses that his is a losing battle. He accepts his fate, however, and is a little unnerved by the emotions he finds himself feeling and expressing at the end of day seven.

"A Question of Blood" is a satisfying police procedural with an extra twist or two but John Rebus fans will enjoy it most because of the opportunity it gives them to spend some time with their old friend. For such a loner, John Rebus is an easy guy to like.

Walk into a book shop, and chances are you'll find the Rankin books under the category of "Mystery". The latest Rebus book is once again a tale of two crimes, which Rebus and Siobhan Clarke slowing solve thoughout the book. But unlike other mystery novels, the fun isn't in deducing whodunnit, but in enjoying the characters on their journey through the story. The interaction between Rebus and Clarke as they work their way through the pubs of Edinburgh is a joy, even when the conversation drifts far away from the cases they are supposed to solve. Many of the other characters firmly hold your attention too, and it's all so enjoyable that the weak conclusions to the mysteries are almost of no consequence. When it comes to an Ian Rankin mystery the fun is in the journey, not in the getting there.