Rebus Resurrected

Fans of crime fiction have good reason to rejoice: after a five-year absence, John Rebus is back. Ian Rankin's inveterate Edinburgh police officer first appeared on the scene 25 years ago and was the driving force of 18 fiendishly puzzling, not to mention consistently thrilling, whodunits, before he bowed out in 2007's Exit Music. His creator, however, never made any secret of the fact that Rebus might return - Exit Music being more a farewell to Rebus's police career than to Rebus himself. Since then Rankin has enjoyed success with a new character, Malcolm Fox of "the Complaints", or Edinburgh's internal affairs unit. Now, in Standing in Another Man's Grave, Rankin hauls Rebus out of retirement - no dramatic Reichenbach Falls resurrection necessary - and, in a masterstroke, also brings in Fox to investigate his apparent wrongdoing. The result is one of Rankin's most satisfying novels to date.