Ian Rankin 7 Books Collection Set Strip Jack, Mortal Causes, Hide and Seek...

Gregor Jack, MP, well-liked, young, married to the fiery Elizabeth - to the outside world a very public success story. But Jack's carefully nurtured career plans take a tumble after a 'mistake' during a police raid on a notorious Edinburgh brothel. Then Elizabeth disappears, a couple of bodies float into view where they shouldn't, and a lunatic speaks from his asylum...

 

Initially Rebus is sympathetic to the MP's dilemma - who hasn't occasionally succumbed to temptation? - but with the disappearance of Jack's wife the glamour surrounding the popular young man begins to tarnish. Someone wants to strip Jack naked and Rebus wants to know why...

When a close colleague is brutally attacked, Inspector John Rebus is drawn into a case involving a hotel fire, an unidentified body, and a long forgotten night of terror and murder.

 

Pursued by dangerous ghosts and tormented by the coded secrets of his colleague's notebook, Rebus must piece together the most complex and confusing of jigsaws.

 

But not everyone wants the puzzle solved - perhaps not even Rebus himself...

A CASE THAT WON'T DIE

 

John Rebus can't close the door on the death of glamorous socialite Maria Turquand. Brutally murdered in her hotel room forty years ago, her killer has never been found.

 

Meanwhile, Edinburgh's dark heart is up for grabs. Young pretender Darryl Christie may have staked his claim on the city's underworld - but has criminal mastermind and Rebus' long-time adversary, Big Ger Cafferty, really settled down to a quiet retirement? Or is he hiding in the shadows until Edinburgh is once more ripe for the picking?

 

Old Enemies. New Crimes. Rebus may be off the force, but he certainly isn't off the case.

 

It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing...

 

A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable.

 

When the victim turns out to be the son of a notorious gangster, Rebus realises he is sitting atop a volcano of mayhem - and it's just about to erupt.

 

'And in Edinburgh of all places. I mean, you never think of that sort of thing happening in Edinburgh, do you...?'

 

'That sort of thing' is the brutal abduction and murder of two young girls. And now a third is missing, presumably gone to the same sad end. Detective Sergeant John Rebus, smoking and drinking too much, his own young daughter spirited away south by his disenchanted wife, is one of many policemen hunting the killer.

 

And then the messages begin to arrive: knotted string and matchstick crosses - taunting Rebus with pieces of a puzzle only he can solve.

A junkie lies dead in an Edinburgh squat, spreadeagled, cross-like on the floor, between two burned-down candles, a five-pointed star daubed on the wall above.

 

Just another dead addict - until John Rebus begins to chip away at the indifference, treachery, deceit and sleaze that lurks behind the facade of the Edinburgh familiar to tourists.

 

Only Rebus seems to care about a death which looks more like a murder every day, about a seductive danger he can almost taste, appealing to the darkest corners of his mind...

They call him the Wolfman - because he takes a bite out of his victims and because they found the first victim in the East End's lonely Wolf Street. Scotland Yard are anxious to find the killer and Inspector Rebus is drafted in to help. But his Scotland Yard opposite number, George Flight, isn't happy at yet more interference, and Rebus finds himself dealing with racial prejudice as well as the predations of a violent maniac.

 

When Rebus is offered a serial killer profile of the Wolfman by an attractive female psychologist, it's too good an opportunity to miss. But in finding an ally, he may have given his enemies an easy means of attack.