Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley (USA 2010)

From the Publisher:
Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh's most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets - but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley.

In the city's red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women with no other choice sell their bodies to make a buck. It's a neighborhood of lost inhibitions, forgotten scruples, and hopeless dreams. In its seediest clubs, refugees seeking asylum are subjected to the whims of the most ruthless characters in the crime world - men Rebus knows all too well.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley. Black Bay Books, ISBN: 9780316099257 (November, 2010), 432 p., $14.99.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley (USA 2006)

From the Publisher:
Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh's most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets - but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley.

In the city's red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women with no other choice sell their bodies to make a buck. It's a neighborhood of lost inhibitions, forgotten scruples, and hopeless dreams. In its seediest clubs, refugees seeking asylum are subjected to the whims of the most ruthless characters in the crime world - men Rebus knows all too well.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley. Little, Brown, & Co., ISBN: 0316010405 (February, 2006), 568 p., $6.99.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close (UK 2006)

From the Publisher:
An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme: a racist attack, or something else entirely? Rebus is drawn into the case, but has other problems: his old police station has closed for business, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around. But Rebus is that most stubborn of creatures. As Rebus investigates, he must visit an asylum seekers' detention centre, deal with the sleazy Edinburgh underworld, and maybe even fall in love...Siobhan meanwhile has problems of her own. A teenager has disappeared from home and Siobhan is drawn into helping the family, which will mean travelling closer than is healthy towards the web of a convicted rapist. Then there's the small matter of the two skeletons - a woman and an infant - found buried beneath a concrete cellar floor in Fleshmarket Close. The scene begins to look like an elaborate stunt - but whose, and for what purpose? And how can it tie to the murder on the unforgiving housing-scheme known as Knoxland?

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752879383 (February, 2006), 482 p., £6.99.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close (UK 2005)

From the Publisher:
An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme: a racist attack, or something else entirely? Rebus is drawn into the case, but has other problems: his old police station has closed for business, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around.

Siobhan meanwhile has problems of her own. A teenager has disappeared from home and Siobhan is drawn into helping the family, which will mean travelling closer than is healthy towards the web of a convicted rapist. Then there's the small matter of the two skeletons - a woman and an infant - found buried beneath a concrete cellar floor in Fleshmarket Close. The scene begins to look like an elaborate stunt - but whose, and for what purpose?

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close. Orion Books, ISBN: 0752865633 (August 2005), 482 p., £6.99.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley (USA 2005)

From the Publisher:
On a notorious street where propriety and decadence clash, in the basement of a newly renovated bar, the bones of a woman and child are discovered beneath a cement floor. It's an unusually gruesome find, even for Fleshmarket Alley. When Inspector John Rebus is called to investigate, every fact he finds unleashes a host of new questions. Are the bones those of a mother and child? Are they actual human remains or fakes? Were they planted there - and if so, why?

It could be nothing more than a ruthless and enterprising pub owner looking to create a local legend that will help lure trade. Or it could be something far worse - something as grisly as the death of a recent immigrant found brutally murdered at a local housing project, or the murder of Donald Cruikshank, a recently paroled rapist whose body is found just as a young woman goes missing. The missing girl is a friend of Inspector Rebus's colleague Detective Siobhan Clarke, and Siobhan is shocked to find herself in the same intricate web of murderers as Rebus - all somehow tied to that pile of bones under Fleshmarket Alley.

In a race to stop the killings before more bodies turn up - even as the possibility of romantic entanglements distracts and entices them - Rebus and Siobhan plumb the darkest corners of their beloved city and confront the lawless, conscienceless men who dwell there. Writing with the unstoppable narrative force that has made him one of the bestselling writers in the world, Edgar Award-winner Ian Rankin delivers his most explosive and surprising mystery yet.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Alley. Little, Brown, & Co., ISBN: 0316095656 (January, 2005), 420 p., $22.95.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close (UK 2004)

From the Publisher:
An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme: a racist attack, or something else entirely? Rebus is drawn into the case, but has other problems: his old police station has closed for business, and his masters would rather he retire than stick around. But Rebus is that most stubborn of creatures. As he investigates, he must visit an asylum seekers' detention centre, deal with the sleazy Edinburgh underworld, and maybe even fall in love...

Siobhan, meanwhile, has problems of her own. A teenager has disappeared from home and Siobhan is drawn into helping the family, which will mean travelling closer than is healthy, towards the web of a convicted rapist. Then there's the small matter of the two skeletons - a woman and an infant - found buried beneath a concrete cellar floor in Fleshmarket Close. The scene begins to look like an elaborate stunt - but whose, and for what purpose? And how does it tie into a murder on the unforgiving housing-scheme known as Knoxland?

Fleshmarket Close explores what it means to a society when shared heritage is lost beneath uglier aspects of our nature: greed, mistrust, violence and exploitation. It is a true state of the nation novel, and one of Rebus's most personal cases yet.

Ian Rankin: Fleshmarket Close. Orion, ISBN: 0752851128 (September, 2004), 399 p., £17.99.