Dead Souls by Ian RankinMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Although I thought this book was not as pacey as usually found in a Rebus tale it was still pretty gripping from the start. There are various plotlines to follow and none of them very cheerful, since he is dealing with a suspected case of child abuse. It is probably brave of the author to tackle such a subject. It was very interesting to learn a little more about John Rebus’s youth and his difficult relationships with women. From other Rebus books we know he probably drinks too much and here he often finds solace in his favourite pubs. This aspect of a police detective’s character has become a cliché after all.
In the end I felt there were too many characters, and too many threads, in a long book that the reader has to follow. It felt much more like a study of John Rebus’s personality and complexes than a crime thriller. His current ‘girlfriend’ was Patience, an excellent name in the circumstances, who hardly appeared in the story. One had to feel sorry for her as he rarely kept his promises to see her, and he was often too tired or drunk to make it to a date. Dead Souls is my least popular book in the Rebus series, not only because of the various criticisms above but because I found it the least enjoyable. The lack of humour, even of satire, made this novel feel heavy going at times.
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