Review: Exit Music

I know I am going to love a book that starts with “The girl screamed once, only once…”. Ian Rankin uses this line to great effect as he sets the scene for a brutal murder in the first chapter of this hard-boiled who-done-it, Exit Music. In classic style, we tag along with Detective Inspector John Rebus and his loyal partner, Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, as they begin a new investigation from the beginning; the blood is still warm and the crime scene is fresh. What first appears as a mugging gone horribly bad is quickly complicated when the identity of the victim is learned. He is a Russian poet who is highly critical of his motherland and the changes occurring there. In an era when Russian reporters and dissidents seem to have a higher mortality rate than a front line soldier, the victim’s connections suddenly open the doors to international intrigue and political implications. When a second murder is discovered, the victim being a material witness in the case, the heat is turned up, and it brings all the creeps out of the woodwork. [Read more...]