Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
This is the first Inspector Rebus book I have read and I found it enjoyable, if a little exhausting. The plot was interesting, the characters were well-drawn, but this was not an easy read. I had trouble following some of the twists and I truly don't believe alcoholic anti-social individuals make good detectives. I will give Rankin another try. Hopefully I won't feel like I've been through a 12-round boxing match.
Good mystery. Took me ages to finish it because I kept getting sidetracked by other books, but it held my interest throughout. I had previously read another book from this serious which was a decent read, but not exactly a great one. This one was a pleasant surprise. A series I'll be reading more from.
I’m going to begin my review of Ian Rankin’s masterful Black and Blue by doing something I’ve tried to refrain from doing lately: bitching about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). For the uninitiated – in other words, readers of my reviews who don’t know what I’m up to in my life off the computer – my problems with the CCSS aren’t some Glenn Beckian, “Obama’s a secret Muslim so let’s cancel AP US History” goofabout. Nope: my problems with it are manifold, very real, and based in the twenty
3.5 stars
The more I read of Ian Rankin's books, the more I like them and his protagonist, John Rebus. All of the books thus far in the series have been "meaty": requiring the reader to hunker down and get serious about this reading journey. Black and Blue offers an especially complex and twisting plot.In what will not be a surprise to readers of this series, in Black and Blue Detective Inspector John Rebus once again finds himself in hot water with his superiors. This time, Rebus finds himself the lone t...
Prime Rebus. This is exactly what I was looking for, and failed to get, when I read Mortal Causes. An extremely heavy, intertwined and self-inflicted case load dogs Rebus all across Scotland. The best Rebus books offer a strong investigation - if not a mystery - and, more importantly, strong characterisation of the man himself. Rebus is the drawcard and he does not disappoint, the cover suggesting that Black & Blue is the novel that raised Rankin to the upper echelons of crime writing. Given wha...
John Rebus gets in your face... and hits you hard. With drive, determination, emotion, stubborn attitude. He is a liar and an honest person at the same time. He takes life hard, rather a bleak and lonely outlook, has trouble with relationships, love, alcohol. Always gets into trouble with his superiors. But he's loyal to his colleagues, and a straight guy. And he's a damn good detective. I'm not by definition a crime book reader, but the Rebus' books I like. Story lines and characters are always...
I think the reason I like the Rebus novels so much stems from the fact that they have so much more in common with American noir fiction than they do with the classic British whodunit. Rankin’s frontman is a hardened (SAS trained), drinking man with sometimes dubious scruples but one who cares passionately about getting the job done - which for him entails tracking down the bad men. There’s a lot of Rankin in Rebus: they drink in the same pub (Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar), their music tastes seldom st...
Now this is how you write a really good crime novel. Okay so the main character is a stereotypical alcoholic, antisocial cop but it is what Ian Rankin does with him that counts. Rebus has developed over eight books into a man who does everything he can to catch his criminal frequently regardless of what his superiors might want or desire.Best of all, the book is constant action. As I assume happens in real life police work, Rebus does not pursue just one crime for the whole book. He is busy on s...
It has been a while since I have indulged in some Ian Rankin crime fiction and this book has reminded me why I classify his books as pure escapism!Despite being first published twenty years ago, this book has a lasting relevancy and an enjoyment that can be garnered from a contemporary reader used to, perhaps, a more psychological twist to their crime fiction.Some aspects of this novel seemed particularly tried, like the gruff, alcoholic detective whose eyes we see this world through, but, for m...
So far the best Rebus novel of the 8 I have read. In this novel, Rankin uses a story he heard from a friend and builds up a whole narrative which is amazing. John Rebus is mobile , he takes us all around Scotland in this book. From Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, to the Shetlands and the oil rigs in the Atlantic. There are four crimes in this 500 pages novel. Rankin's most ambitious so far - as I am reading the series one books at time. The four crimes connect the past to the present. A Bible John...
What would series crime fiction be like without the clunky crap? I've wondered more than once in the last 18 months, as I started reading more of the genre than I had since my teens. Answer: It would be like an Ian Rankin.For over twenty years, I'd assumed to some extent that his books must be overhyped and trashy, as a lot of thrillers are. A ten year old list of 100 best Scottish books - which included Black & Blue - at least gave me pause for thought and a vague intention to get round to him
Gold Dagger Winner, 1997 - “This book almost killed me! So I’m glad there’s been some recompense.” – Ian Rankin, January 6th 1998.Rankin's coming of age, hard-boiled police procedural is one of my all time favourite crime novels. Serial killer ”Bible John” murdered three people 30 years ago, and then disappears. He’s back – or is it a copycat, nicknamed Bible Johnny, by the press? Rebus has his hands full with solving the murder of an oil rig painter and he’s under investigation for planting evi...
Up we go to five stars! Rankin is the master, and here's where he hits his stride.Yesterday afternoon, I handed in an almighty-huge work project that I've been plugging away at for two months. In celebration, I took the evening to myself: bubble bath, glass of whisky, Rebus. Exactly how these things should be done. I read til the water got cold. And it was great.This is the book where Rankin started to really get noticed, and it's also the book that reminds me how much I adore this whole genre:
Inspector Rebus mystery No. 8: Ranking continues writing these consistently food crime mysteries in the Rebus series. Rebus is involved with four cases and a personal investigation in to one of his past cases, whilst being under threat in both his personal and work lives! …somehow Rankin puts all this together in 500 pages, keeping it riveting, coherent and interesting, all with great personal characterisations! 7 out of 12
Another really good Rebus novel from Ian Rankin, full of ambiguity, moral questions, great characters and above all a an interesting and very well plotted storyline. If only all crime novels could be as well written as this.
Disappointing, esp. given Rankin's usually reliable Rebus tales. This book reads like at least three mysteries in one ("I think I shall write about the oil industry - no wait, the drug industry- no wait, organized crime - no wait, two serial killers"), and the connections provided by the end of the book are pretty uninteresting after one has to wade through all the extraneous material about the oil industry. Could have used a good editor to say, no, this is really two books - or three - why don'...
This book kept me up at night while my mind worked through Rebus and all of his faults, mistakes and efforts to solve the crime(s) through multiple threads, lines of investigation and issues with his fellow officers. He's in a bad place personally as well through an investigation into a past case that he was involved in.As always, Rankin tells an intriguing story, bringing the reader along on a thrilling ride as we travel across Scotland with his main character.
This book took a while for me to get into, mainly because I don't have an innate interested in the Scottish oil industry. This is the book for you if you want to learn about Scottish oil. However, as the storyline became more and more intertwined, I was gripped and had to see it through to the end. I think the characteration of Rebus in this book is at its best, particularly because Rankin forces the character to look within himself more, and questions his motives for his actions, struggling wit...
Yet another one of those books you can't put down even though you ought to tend to other needed activities. I am in awe of how much great stuff was contained within this one book. One feature I warmed up to was getting to experience Rebus sober. Black and Blue? Yeah, I think I'm feeling that way after reading through several of his beatings...but then he just keeps going strong. And with so many odds stacked against him in this episode.We get internal investigations of Rebus for things long past...