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The plot encompasses paedophilia, suicide and murder, and it is a dark read (not that any of the Rebus novels are uplifting). Multiple stories, some relating to each other more than others, are introduced so piecemeal and jumping about in unrelated snippets; a multitude of characters, several with similar names difficult to differentiate; along with a sort of exaggerated Brit/Scot street slang all worked to make the first fifty pages almost unintelligible to me.
He entertainingly plays Stevens (and quite a few other people) for the fool, and though the character is quite a bit over the top it does make for considerable menace and suspense.The tale is a loose patchwork of four stories that thread together as Rebus chases the individual strands down.
The book has a real sense of place and I can feel myself walking the streets of Edinburgh with Rebus. Darren Rouse, the pedophile, claims that he is taking a photography class and the zoo is his assignment. S. of multiple charges of murder, the Americans have released him on a technicality after serving fifteen years of a life sentence and then deported him back to his home town of Edinburgh, where he has scores to settle. The word ‘psychopath’ wasn’t used much anymore by the experts, but reading between the lines and the jargon, Rebus knew that was what they were dealing with. One thing is that, after reading a John Rebus' book, I have an anguished feeling of visiting Edinburgh, see all those places describe the author with my own eyes.Most of the threads are pulled together but there are some questions left unanswered and the epilogue may set the stage for another book. Jim Margolies is an up-and-coming police officer who inexplicably takes his own life by jumping from Sailsbury Crags on the city’s edge.
Anyway, Dead Souls focuses on crimes against children and what that can do to them -- not just at the moment they're victimized, but years later. Rebus's troubles are soon reflected in the old city around him: violent grassroots vigilantism breaks out in a housing project when Rebus informs the press that a convicted child molester is living in one of the flats; Cary Oakes, a serial killer just released from a U. Rebus encounters him at the zoo (where Rebus is meant to be on the lookout for an animal-poisoner), and soon enough Rough becomes a bigger part of his life than he might have wanted.
But Oakes has consistently underestimated Rebus, who kicks him into the path of a speeding car while he is intent on his attack. In addition, a convicted murderer who spent 25 years in an American prison has been released and deported to Edinburgh, where he grows up. Enough that I was barely able to put the book down for the last day and a half of reading - and enough to want to give Rankin another try for sure. The souls that are dead here have been killed by various means and methods over time -- some realize that's what they are, some haven't a clue -- some come to realize it in these pages (and some try to revitalize themselves). He is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, and he received two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction.
He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.The series is set in Edinburgh and Rankin displays an unnerving knowledge of, seemingly, how crime works there. Kudos to Rankin for the heightened drama of this police procedural beyond the usual crimes and their investigations. They really can't do anything other than be visible for a few days until money runs out on the operation, but no one who knows this killer has any doubt that he'll strike again, and the police are trying to discourage that. The ending of the book left me wanting to get on to the next chapter in the story, and so I think I may linger in Edinburgh just a bit longer.
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