To avoid any potential embarrassment, DI Rebus?s superiors have deemed him non-essential for security preparations for the G8s Gleneagles Summit. The police are stretched almost to breaking point, despite the fact that units have been called in from around the country to assist in controlling the expected protests.The discovery of a series of clues at an historic ?clootie well?, close to Gleneagles, points to a serial killer stalking recently released rapists, and drags Rebus back to center-stage. The almost simultaneous death of a dynamic young politician, in a fall from the battlements of Edinburgh Castle, alarms the security establishment. Rebus?s attempts to interview the head of a recently privatised British arms industry do not go down well with Special Branch, and Rebus is warned off.Rebus has ideas about the deaths that his superiors do not want to consider. Rebus?s superiors want investigations to cease, or be hushed up, during the Summit; decisions that Rebus is not prepared to contemplate. Rebus?s superiors appear to believe the investigations distract resources from the far more important work of keeping protesters under control so that the Heads of State can complete their weighty work. Rebus?s clashes with the over-bearing chief of the security arrangements, and DS Clark?s far more personal search for the riot policeman who assaults her mother, provide constant diversions from the cases. An ageing Rebus and still ambitious Clark work behind, and around, the system in order to close the cases. During this, both Rebus and Clark are forced to re-evaluate their commitment to their personal ideals, and to what it means to be in the police. The Naming of the Dead is the latest novel (2006) in the Rebus series from multiple-award winning crime-writer Ian Rankin. Its fast-paced action is set against the backdrop of the complexity of current development politics and the War on Terror. The book is wonderfully readable, filled with authentic characters bound together with Rankin?s usual winning mix of Scottish noir and wittiness.
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