A Good Hanging Ian Rankin

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Edinburgh is a city steeped in history and tradition, a seat of learning, of elegant living, known as the 'Athens of the North'.

But that isn't all. The city's flip-side is a city of grudges, blackmail, violence, greed and fear - where past and present clash and old wounds fester. In any year Detective Inspector John Rebus can expect gang warfare, murder, assault and battery at the very least.

In this collection he investigates the hanging of a student actor during the Festival, an arson attack on a bird watcher and the witnessing of an apparent miracle...

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Although Edgar Allen Poe proved that it was possible to craft a satisfying short mystery, there is always something disatisfying about that form: under its limitations, the plot contrivances are more obvious and the character development skimpier. First published in England in 1992, this collection of 12 tales reflects those flaws, but it also features Detective Inspector John Rebus, Rankin's police hero, and his fascinating city of Edinburgh. From the hanging of a young actor to a confessed murderer's declaration of innocence, the enigmatic and secretive Rebus solves these cases, much to the chagrin of his inferiors (and superiors): "How was he [Holmes] expected to shine, to be noticed, to push forward to promotion, when it was always Rebus who, two steps ahead, came up with the answers?" These stories are slight but enjoyable. Budgets allowing, purchase for your Rankin fans; otherwise, stick to Rankin's more complex and compelling novels like The Falls. Wilda Williams, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

For his 13th Det. Insp. John Rebus volume, Ian Rankin (The Falls) has traded the full-length police procedural for a collection of 12 gripping stories. The king of tartan noir puts his popular Scottish "heart attack material" supersleuth to work investigating arson, a ghostly vision, a converted ex-con and the "perfect murder" in A Good Hanging's fast-paced mini-mysteries. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

The gently swaying body of a young man is discovered on a scaffold erected in the middle of Edinburgh's Royal Mile in the title story of this collection of 12 short stories, all starring Detective Police Inspector John Rebus, who has appeared in 14 highly regarded Scottish police procedurals. Given to deductive leaps that leave his coworkers gaping, the sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued Rebus often seems like a hard-boiled Sherlock Holmes, time warped to contemporary Edinburgh. The short story format works perfectly in showcasing Rebus unraveling a series of old-fashioned puzzles, including a locked-room murder and a murder that is perfect except for one tiny detail, a line from Twelfth Night, picked up by Rebus alone. One story, "Sunday," follows Rebus on a lazy recovery day off; the surprise ending, revealing what he is recovering from, is beautifully understated. Here are classic deductive puzzles, in which everything is laid out for the reader in an intellectual challenge. The setting, moving from the gray pile of Edinburgh Castle through the cafes and bars of trendy New Town to Dickensian tenements, is arresting in itself. A captivating collection. --Connie Fletcher

Kirkus Book Review

Nothing more than 12 character studies, perhaps-but the character they're studying is probably the most interesting man in detective fiction, the quintessential thinking man, Edinburgh DI John Rebus. It's fascinating to watch him ratiocinate his way through a schoolgirl's enforced suicide ("The Gentlemen's Club"), his old nemesis "Trigger" Crawford's revenge on a drug dealer ("Auld Lang Syne"), a peeper's comeuppance ("Tit for Tat"), an alibi that breaks down, rises again, then crumbles ("Not Provan"), a Hammett cliche ("The Dean Curse"), and a hanging that turns out to be manual strangulation (the title story). Rebus, per usual, groans at pathologist Dr. Curt's puns-most noticeably in "Seeing Things"-reconstructs and then deconstructs a murder scenario in "Concrete Evidence," believes a murderer when he recants a confession in "Playback," and sorts through fantasy and fact as they wend their way through Frank the tramp's brain in "Being Frank." And while "Monstrous Trumpet" finds Rankin in a playful mood and Rebus confronting his Francophobia and a passel of man-baiters, it is the brief "Sunday" and Rebus's reaction to murdering a thug that most worries his perpetual underling, Constable Brian Holmes-and sticks with the reader the longest afterward. Are the stories as potent as the Rebus novels (The Falls, p. 1172, etc.)? No. But any time spent with Rebus is quality time.