品牌：Ian Rankin
基本信息
·出版社：Orion mass market paperback
·页码：496 页码
·出版日：2001年
·ISBN：9780752844053
·条码：9780752844053
·版次：New Ed
·装帧：平装
·丛书名：Inspector Rebus
内容简介
When the privileged daughter of a merchant banker disappears, a search through her e-mails uncovers her secret life-and a bizarre correspondence with an on-line game player who delights in macabre puzzles. The first game was for the girl. The next one is for Inspector John Rebus, a man haunted by the impenetrable riddles of his own troubled past. But the lead is soon complicated by an unexpected twist.
A hand-carved wooden doll in an eight-inch coffin is found on the grounds of the victim's home-a clue that links her vanishing to the deaths of four other women, and to a centuries-old offense that still scars the grisly history of Edinburgh.
From the shadowy world of an Internet stalker to the quicksand of lies in the missing girl's dissolute family, Rebus is led into the soul of evil. And to a shattering crime that only he, a man who treads the fine line between investigative brilliance and personal oblivion, could ever hope to understand.
作者简介
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into twenty-two languages and are bestsellers on several continents.Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, as well as receiving two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize in 2000. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh.A contributor to BBC2's 'Newsnight Review', he also presented his own TV series, 'Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts', on Channel 4 in 2002. His most recent novel, A QUESTION OF BLOOD, was a Sunday Times Number One bestseller in both hardback and paperback. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.
编辑推荐
Amazon.com
Edinburgh police detective John Rebus, Ian Rankin's popular series detective, is a brilliantly realized character, as moody, dark, and melancholy as Edinburgh itself. InThe Falls, he's almost certain that missing university student Philippa Balfour is dead, but he's less sure how she died or what her misadventure has to do with the tiny doll in a hand-sized coffin that turns up near a waterfall on the Balfour family estate. It's not the first coffin found near the scene of a crime; could Philippa be the victim of a serial killer? The only other lead the police have is a cryptic e-mail from someone called Quiz Master, inviting Philippa--and then constable Siobhan Clarke, who responds using Philippa's screen name--to join him in a bizarre scavenger hunt that might lead Clarke to Philippa's body, her killer, or her own death.This time out Rebus has a new boss, who's no happier with his unorthodox style or impolitic attitude toward the Edinburgh establishment than his last one was. But even under department suspension, Rebus manages to tie a number of seemingly disparate and unconnected clues together and deliver a killer in a scene that even the most discerning reader may not see coming until it jumps off the page. A bestseller in the U.K.,The Fallsis Rankin's best yet.--Jane Adams--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A number one U.K. bestseller, Rankin's 13th novel featuring Scottish Det. Insp. John Rebus may be his breakout book in the U.S. Rankin's brilliant evocation of a moody Edinburgh, deeply human characters and labyrinthine plot give dimension to this always absorbing series. With his stubborn insistence on tying up the frayed ends of every knotty clue, and iconoclastic refusal to be a team player, hard-drinking Rebus is a bane to his superiors but a blessing to readers. University student Philippa Balfour, daughter of the powerful head of a private bank, disappears; the few clues are incongruous a puzzling Internet role-playing game she participated in and a doll in a tiny wooden coffin found near her discordant family's home. Rebus's assistant, Det. Constable Siobhan Clarke, tackles the mysterious Internet game; Rebus ignores his superiors by obsessively following the coffin's obscure historical implications, aided by museum curator Jean Burchill, a friend of newly appointed Det. Chief Supt. Gill Templer and a promising anodyne to Rebus's lonely personal life. Readers won't be able to skim this dark, densely written novel, but they won't want to. Artfully placed red herrings, a large cast of multifaceted characters and a gripping pace will keep them engrossed. And Rebus is a character whose devils and idiosyncrasies will leave them eager for more. (Nov. 8)Forecast: A bestseller in Ireland, Australia and Canada as well, this novel may achieve similar heights here, spurred by a tour by the Edinburgh author, winner of Britain's Gold Dagger Award.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In his latest police procedural, Edgar-nominated Rankin (Set in Darkness) explores Edinburgh's gruesome past and dark present. Investigating the disappearance of Philippa Balfour, a young woman from a wealthy banking family, Inspector John Rebus has only two clues to work with: an e-mail message on Philippa's computer, indicating that she was playing an online game with the mysterious Quizmaster, and a tiny wooden coffin found near the Balfour family home. While Detective Constable Siobhan Clarke attempts to track down the Quizmaster by playing the game in Philippa's place, Rebus focuses on the coffin. Is there a connection with 18th-century body snatchers, or is the link more contemporary? The possibility of a serial killer also arises. Combining complicated multiple plot lines with finely drawn characters and fascinating Scottish lore and settings, Rankin once again proves himself a master of the gritty British crime novel. For all mystery collections. Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
专业书评
FromAudioFile
DI Rebus of the Edinburgh Police is on the job again, this time dealing with the disappearance/death of the daughter of a wealthy banker. Her murder may or may not have something to do with an intricate cyberpuzzle posed by the elusive Quizmaster. Samuel Gillies has read several Rebus novels for Clipper and is obviously comfortable with the aging, prickly Scot and his fellow investigators. His gentle burr leads the listener through this latest police procedural complete with departmental politics, local color, and romantic distractions. Scots history and folklore loom over the case as Edinburgh's castle overshadows the city. Aside from the lack of some clarifying pauses, this is a fine rendering of a complex novel. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine--Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
FromBooklist
*Starred Review* Rankin has long been celebrated by connoisseurs of hard-boiled British procedurals; now it seems he's ready to make the jump to mass-market commercial success. His latest thriller is already the number-one best-seller in the U.K.; perhaps the only thing holding it back from similar success here is the appalling American trend toward teetotaling hard-boiled heroes. Rankin's hard-drinking, chain-smoking, terminally melancholic hero, Edinburgh detective John Rebus, feels most comfortable in "small, smoky bars filled with disappointed men." He has plenty to be disappointed about this time: he's decided to sell his flat but has nowhere to go; he's feeling more and more alienated from his younger, team-player colleagues; and he can't seem to get a handle on his latest case--the disappearance and probable murder of an Edinburgh coed. Then a link turns up to a series of disappearances dating back 30 years, and Rebus hits the trail like a dog after a bone. The bone proves elusive, but the trail is rich with Scottish history, leading all the way back to a centuries-old case involving body snatchers selling cadavers to medical students. Paralleling the historical path on which Rebus treads, his protege, Siobhan Clarke, follows a twenty-first-century lead involving the victim's obsession with online game-playing. Rankin handles both strands of his plot superbly, juggling Rebus' cadavers with Siobhan's e-mails while the suspense builds to a remarkably exciting finale. Best of all, though, is the ever-deepening, ever-darkening portrait of the aging Rebus, the anti-organization man trapped in a world where mavericks are an endangered species--except at a few "small, smoky bars" where they sip whiskey with the other dinosaurs.Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
The New York Times Book Review
"The Falls [is] another grimly engrossing procedural in a stylish noir series."--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"A...beautifully written series." -The New York Times Book Review
"Rankin is the master of the moody, modern police procedural, working on the same high plateau as Ruth Rendell, Reginald Hill, and P.D. James." -The Wall Street Journal
"[A] Brilliant Series."-Entertainment Weekly
"Finish one of Rankin's book, and you'll feel you've been taken inside the river body of Edinburgh from top to the darkest bottom, a journey that calls Charles Dickens and Wilke Collins to mind as often as it does Inspector Morse." -Los Angeles Times
--This text refers to theMass Market Paperbackedition.
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