I've enjoyed Rebus novels over the years but this one just didn't come to life for me. I think it's because after all this time I still don't have a clear picture in my mind of detectives Clarke and Fox, Rebus' supposed successors as protagonists after his retirement. And Rebus constantly turning up and interfering in their work just makes him seem a bit sad and pathetic. I'd rather remember him as he was!

I would like to thank Orion and NetGalley for letting me have a copy of ‘In A House Of Lies’ by Ian Rankin in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Twelve years after Stuart Bloom disappeared his body is discovered in the boot of his car in Poretoun Woods. DI Siobhan Clarke is seconded to Police Scotland’s MIT team and joins DCI Graham Sutherland to investigate where Bloom’s body has been since 2006 and who was responsible for his death. When Siobhan starts receiving silent phone calls she turns to her old colleague and friend John Rebus for his help in investigating a cold case, although as he’s retired it’s not strictly legitimate.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading this thriller, a story of police officers working a tough territory, and crooked officers working for the criminals, leaking information and twisting the law to suit themselves. I’m delighted that John Rebus is part of the story as he can be relied on to add his own brand of humour and retribution. There are characters we’ve come to know from previous novels in the Rebus series such as Malcolm Fox and Big Ger Cafferty, there’s plenty of excitement, twists and turns, and villains getting their comeuppance. This is a hugely entertaining novel and one I can thoroughly recommend.

Review Although obviously a crime thriller this book is part of an amazing series where there is always banter and humour along with the more grizzly bits. Rebus is retired, he has quite the cigs and booze but they have taken their toll on his health, despite this he is never far from the action and his help is invaluable as he still knows all the crooks with their dodgy dealings. Another great read.

Rebus is back and Rankin is on top form looking back at a cold case, bent coppers and a recent murder. He may have retired officially but old dogs never do. Brilliant.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Orion Publishing Group for an advance copy of In a House of Lies, the twenty-second novel to feature Edinburgh based former DI John Rebus of Police Scotland.

When an abandoned car is found down a gully in some woods further investigation uncovers a skeleton in the boot. DI Siobhan Clarke is seconded to the investigative team, closely followed by Rebus inserting himself into the investigation because not only does he know who the skeleton is he was part of the team that investigated the original disappearance. As that investigation made little headway and was subject to several complaints by the victim's family DI Malcolm Fox is sent to investigate the original enquiry.

I thoroughly enjoyed In a House of Lies which is an appealing mix of genuine mystery, lies, misdirection, personality clashes and a dash of black humour, all told in a very readable style. From the opening paragraphs I felt invited in and settled in the novel, just from the engaging style of the writing, but it isn't long before the plot takes over and then I couldn't put it down. It is quite a complicated novel, not so much the basic premise (whodunnit) but the sorting out of links between the characters and their self interest and motives because with Rebus involved nothing is straightforward. And yet, it is not a difficult novel to follow or understand. I was enthralled by the detail and amazed yet again by Rebus's smarts and ability to wriggle out of trouble! The body might be failing but the mind is still razor sharp.

Rebus is one of my favourite fictional detectives as his character is very recognisably older generation Scottish with a healthy disregard for authority, a stubbornness to do it his way and a devious mindset that allows him to do so. He regards the rule book as suggestions, sails close to the wind and mostly comes out of the havoc he causes, if not smelling of roses, at least with the right result. And, of course, you never really know what he's thinking. Mentally he's on top form in this novel, twisting arms left, right and centre to get the information he requires. Physically his COPD is taking its toll. Great stuff.

In a House of Lies is an excellent read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

This was my first encounter if Rebus, I think I will now be very busy working my way through the previous titles!
Great crime fiction plot, full of intrigue and made me want to keep reading just one more chapter!

I am a big Ian Rankin fan and this book is brilliant. The story is really good and so are the characters. Rebus as always is wonderful. I am so glad that his character is still helping the police. I feel like I am reading about friends, I know the characters so well. Hopefully there are many more books to come.

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

This is book 22 of Rebus and it maintains a level of 'punch' and vigour, even 22 books in.

Rebus is involved in a cold case that has layers of intrigue and some humour in this solid police procedural and I found it an OK read. Overall though, I just didn't care enough about any of the characters or storyline for it to really hook me.

For fans of Ian Rankin and Rebus, I'm sure you'll love it. For me a 3* read.

Thanks to NetGalley, Orion Publishers and the author for the opportunity to preview.

This was the first ever Rebus book I have read and I thoroughly enjoyed what I read! A good storyline running through the book, with the addition of a few side ones, and great characters that I would really like to read more of in the future.

Rebus may have been told that he is in a “managed decline,” but I’m delighted to say that Ian Rankin certainly isn’t. In A House Of Lies is excellent.

When long-dead body is discovered in an abandoned car Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox are part of the MIT investigating. Rebus, now well retired from the force, was part of the original investigation and becomes involved in this, too – not always to the delight of the team. It’s classic Rankin: complex, well structured and nuanced, with his three central characters especially being extremely well drawn.

There’s a lot of good crime fiction being written at the moment, but for me, this shows why Ian Rankin still stands out from the rest and remains among among the very best writers in the genre. He generates an excellent and wholly unforced atmosphere, sense of place and feel of police work and his characters, plot and dialogue are all completely convincing to me. That long, shadowy, complex relationship between Rebus and Big Ger Cafferty is still a brilliant feature and Rankin is doing an excellent job of widening the central focus of the books to include Clarke and Fox. Most of all, In A House Of Lies is completely compelling; I was hooked and sorry to reach the end.

Probably all that really need be said is that this is a very fine Ian Rankin novel. The man is still at the peak of his form and I can recommend this very warmly indeed.

(My thanks to Orion for an ARC via NetGalley.)

I love being back in this world .. Clarke is more confident and grown up ..although I miss being closer to her than in earlier novels .. fox is weasly add ever but still makes me think about right and wrong .. and when Rebus appears in midst of what looks like unraveling gang war, despite his having gone a. bit soft, he's still as robust and persuasive about rights and wrongs There's reminders about his drinking, his smoking and his smart GF, a professor.. but he gets all goo goo eyed about a dog .. everyone's getting killed of, starting unaccountably with an aristo who seems to have nothing in. common with. big time gangster ..now 'retired' ,Big Ger Cafferty who we know from earlier novels .. a source of info for Rebus. He's also had same message .. what's going on ..and police gang handling surveillance seem suspiciously hands off .. has an undercover cop gone native? As story goes on and Rebus more in on it, despite being out of police, things get tighter ..tougher .. I was worried it was getting tired ..but NO .. thanks to Rankin for bringing him back .. I even enjoyed Fox again ..

In a House of Lies is, of course, the latest book about John Rebus, sometime DI with Lothian and Borders Police. That will be enough for most people to just decide to read - it would (was) be enough for me. But as this series evolves, Rankin continues to develop his characters and to address new challenges and there is a fair bit here to analyse, so please indulge me.

Rebus is now retired and in declining health. Ill with COPD (the two flights of stairs to his flat becoming "a definite issue"), he has given up smoking - couldn't get too grips with vaping, too tech - and is largely off the booze (the Oxford Bar hardly features, and we even witness Rebus visiting a pub... for a coffee).

Lothian and Borders Police has gone, too, swallowed up into Police Scotland, a unitary force run from the glossy "crime campus" at Gartcosh, miles from Edinburgh. Instead of local detectives investigating murders, a mobile squad - MIT ("Major Incident Team") is parachuted in as required with experienced cops like Siobhan Clarke squeezed out. It's not hard to see Rankin's frustration with this situation ("This was the way things were now, thanks to the changes at Police Scotland - local CID reduced to a secondary role..." "Police Scotland's process of centralisation meant a lot of local information-gathering either didn't happen or went ignored") especially since in recent books he's had to devote a lot of ingenuity not only to making Rebus's presence, but even that of Clarke, the other real regular from the old days, plausible, even before getting the story itself moving.

In a House of Lies achieves the former by making one of Rebus's old cases relevant again when a missing person is found long dead. Rebus can therefore be brought in to elucidate the botched enquiry from 2006 and as a bonus, Malcolm Fox gets to give the original case papers a once-over. Clarke is attached to the enquiry for her local knowledge. In terms of plausibility I think this is one of the better set-ups of recent books (Rebus doesn't have to keep trying to blag his way into the enquiry room) even if it does mean repeating what feels like a bit of a running theme: Rebus in the sights of Complaints for past failings and potentially taking the rap for the corrupt and lazy - even though (as we know well) he may always have been unconventional, but was never corrupt or lazy.

It's perhaps in keeping with this somewhat backward-looking and even elegiac mood that a recurring theme here is memory and its trickiness. Clarke stores names on her phone, in case she forgets them. Rebus accuses her and her generation of having short memories, and having "forgotten how to store information". He wonders about the point of "dusting off people's memories" from the earlier enquiry, and how soon they will forget the body found in the woods. Amidst all this loss of memory, despite the vague promise that soon it will all be "kept in the Cloud, whatever that is", it's not surprisingly Rebus - and his old nemesis Cafferty - who know what's what even if "it was hard [for Rebus] to remember the person he'd been, new to the city and new to the job" (a bit of a sly joke there, perhaps, given the way that Rankin has reinvented and reinterpreted Rebus over the course of this series).

But this series is far from becoming a showcase for grumpy old men (whether characters or author). There is a considerable freshness to In a House of Lies whether it's the greater sense of equality between Clarke, Rebus and Fox (in previous books, there has been a hierarchy which has dotted about a bit with one or the other of the three on top at different times depending who is investigating who, whether Rebus is in or out of the police and where Clarke is in her career), Rebus (finally!) taking more care of his health or - oddly - Cafferty, who clearly has Plans (and is considerably more adroit with the tech than Rebus, as Rankin makes clear when describing his infosec measures)

The story itself is pacy, twisty and substantial. Apart from the body that comes to light, Clarke is being threatened, giving her an early excuse to bring in Rebus with a relatively self-contained task. I thought for a while that was going to be Rebus's main role in the story, with the focus on her. That might not be before time (personally I'd love a series of Siobhan Clarke novels with Rebus backgrounded) but perhaps Rankin knows his audience too well for this. At any rate, Rebus gets plenty to do here, and on the main case, though perhaps he doesn't quite own the stage as in the past.

I only had a couple of reservations. First, in a couple of places the portrayal of secondary women characters seemed a bit perfunctory, with a main feature being how much make-up they wore - either too much, or little or none because "she really didn't need it" (of course, it may be she just didn't bother with it, or was in a bit of a hurry that morning...)

And there's reference to Cafferty's investment in a low budget British film in the mid 2000s having produced a profit. No way was there a profit - that investment would have been for tax purposes, designed to produce a loss. However, perhaps that's not a lapse by Rankin and Cafferty knew this all along - or the producer would have received an unwelcome surprise of some sort - and is spinning a line for Rebus.

OK, maybe I'm being a bit picky here. Overall, for me, this is one of the best, if not the best, Rebus story since Rankin brought the character back after Exit Music. It has a complex, satisfying story, plenty of atmosphere and lots for my favourite three detectives to do, with, apparently, plenty of life still in the series.

Rankin is the master of the Scottish crime novel. The many strands of this story weave together seamlessly. A cold case of a body in a car, the murder of a teenage girl, the filming of cheap horror films and corruption within the police. Masterful characterisation too. Rebus eat al are a joy.

Ian Rankin and John Rebus at their best! Even in retirement Rebus is still an inspiration ro his former colleagues to help solve this latest case. Sad to hear the old fella’s health is not so good, hope it doesn’t deter him from solving other cases in the future.

I can’t believe this is the 22nd Rebus novel! He might be getting on a bit, but he’s still up there sorting out the criminals of Edinburgh like no body’s business. He’s got a case with serious bite in this novel and it takes him across the city and to the woods where a body is found..

Poretoun woods is luckily fictional but it sounded and felt so real, I did have to look for them even though I lived in Edinburgh for ages. That’s what Ian Rankin does to my head. He messes it up in the best way possible with showing me the darkest corners of the city which either seem real or reveal their dark sides I’d never noticed before.

The dead body in this case, with his feet in handcuffs turns out to be gay private investigator, Stuart Bloom, who disappeared in 2006. There were troubles of land grabs and a fight over whether a film studio or a golf course should win out. A cold case now has suddenly become very hot in deed...

There’s not just a house of lies but a whole city of them it would seem. I particularly liked getting to know Clarke more and he traumas and her work over a cold case.That was a good story in itself! Getting cold calls from mysterious phoneboxes in the city gave the whole thing a feeling of being watched and tracked.

Rebus might be getting older but the humour of the books isn’t. The police from the original case for example were nicknamed the Chuggabugs from the Wacky Races. And faces from the past return in the form of Morris Gerald Cafferty, Big Ger, the gangster and hardman.

A solid case for Rebus and a solid read for fans everywhere.

So Ian Rankin gives us the 22nd in the Edinburgh series featuring the iconic DI John Rebus, except Rebus is retired, although when was that ever going to stop him? He may well have given up the fags and curbed his excessive need for the drink, he may well have trouble climbing the stairs with his emphysema but he has not forgotten his well honed detective gut instincts. A group of schoolboys in Poretoun wood discover a well hidden red VW polo, in the boot is the body of a dead man with his feet in handcuffs. The dead man turns out to be gay private investigator, Stuart Bloom, who disappeared in 2006, whilst working for film producer, Jackie Ness, in his fight over a land deal he wanted for film studios, he was up against Adrian Brand who wanted it for a golf course. The police team looking into Bloom's disappearance at the time came to be discredited in later years, with Bloom's mother, Catherine, accusing it of corruption and negligence. The new murder case is to open a can of worms, in which no-one comes out well, no-one is innocent and that includes Rebus. It is a house of lies, speaking of families and the lies they tell each other, in more ways than one.

DI Siobhan 'Shiv' Clarke's reputation has a cloud hanging over it, she has been the focus of ACU, the new version of Complaints, Professional Standards with DS Brian Steele and DC Grant Edwards looking at her for leaking to a journalist contact, Laura Smith. Steele and Edwards were uniforms part of the original 2006 police team, nicknamed the Chuggabugs from the Wacky Races. Clarke has been seconded to the murder inquiry headed by DCI Graham Sutherland. Clarke is getting silent phone calls from public phone boxes. With her eye on the ACU efforts to get her for anything, Clarke asks Rebus to look into the murder conviction of Ellis Meikle for killing his beautiful girlfriend. DI Malcolm Fox has been based at Gartcosh, and with his superiors mindful of the possible ramifications to Police Scotland of the Bloom case, he is asked to go over the old case files to identify problematic areas and any corrupt police practices that took place. Needless to say, Morris Gerald Cafferty, Big Ger, the now revived gangster plays a part in the case, still regretful of the ambitions he had been forced to let go of in 2oo6.

I am not sure how long Ian Rankin can continue this series given Rebus's state of health and retirement, but there is still plenty of life left in Rebus, so I hope he has a long well deserved future. There is no-one quite like Rebus for deploying all that he knows and engaging in machinations worthy of Big Ger himself when it comes to getting a result when it looks out of reach. Rebus may well be viewed as a dinosaur in the modern Police Scotland, but there is no doubt that old policing skills and instincts have their place which computers, IT, and CCTV are unable to replicate. The constant reorganisation, restructuring and bone deep budget cuts facing the police is made clear in the novel. This is another fantastic addition to what is a brilliant and well loved series. Highly Recommended. Many thanks to Orion for an ARC.