Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin

In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin (Little, Brown and Company, December 2018) is the 23^rd book in the contemporary police procedural series set in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featuring former Detective Inspector John Rebus.

Rebus is long retired, reaching mandatory retirement age a few books ago. (Rankin has often said that if he knew the required retirement age of the Scotland police force at the time he started writing this series, he would have made Rebus younger to give him more active time on the police force.) Rankin has had to look for ways to keep him credibly involved with the current undertakings of the local police. First he brought him back as temporary staff to clear up a cold case backlog, and then he created cases with some element of history that requires the investigating team to ask Rebus to explain it.

This latest title involves the discovery of the body of a private investigator who had been missing for about a dozen years. What was once a missing persons case is now an established homicide, and all of the original files must be reviewed. The original investigating team members, including Rebus, are interviewed and their reports are re-evaluated. From the beginning the family of the missing man filed complaint after complaint about the police’s failure to locate their son, who was openly gay, and hints of police homophobia, incompetence, and corruption hover over the re-opened case.

Siobhan Clark, former subordinate and wingman to Rebus, is assigned to the project and serves as an information conduit to Rebus. Matthew Fox comes back into the picture, after having been elsewhere for a few books. Rebus as usual does his own looking under rocks and behind doors, trying hard to pull his old frenemy Big Ger Cafferty into the frame. He has never been successful in putting this old crime boss away, and it continues to gall him. As usual in this series justice takes different shapes and colors in the end.

I won a character name in a Rebus book in a mystery conference charity auction years ago and this is the book my name appears in. The forensic anthropologist is Aubrey Hamilton, who makes a few appearances to work with the pathologist and the soils analytical expert. It’s always entertaining to see how authors decide to use my name. In this case I’m pleased to see it in a book that continues to uphold the high standards of this bestselling series with well-realized characters and a convoluted plot, in which everyone has something to hide.

·         Hardcover: 384 pages

·         Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (December 31, 2018)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0316479209

·         ISBN-13: 978-0316479202

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.