February Books 10) Resurrection Men, by Ian Rankin
A particularly good novel in the Rebus series, and the only Rankin book to have won the Edgar Award. Rebus is put onto a training course as punishment for throwing a cup of tea at his boss, and the dead case resurrected for him and his fellow retrainees turns out to be intimately connected both with the case he has just been taken off, and with the real reason for his throwing the tea. A very intricate plot which actually made sense at the end (which is violent and shocking), with a detailed backdrop which includes many flawed human beings and bitter insights into Scotland's history and society.
I have picked up on one stylistic trick of Rankin's: when he starts going into lyrical descriptive prose about circumstantial detail, it always means that Something is about to Happen. However, one can never be sure of what that is; and anyway, it is a perfectly accurate representation of human experience, where suddenly we do become much more aware of details at moments of stress.
Despite its strong links to previous books in the series, Resurrection Men works well as a standalone novel and would probably be a good place to start Rankin if you want to try.
I have picked up on one stylistic trick of Rankin's: when he starts going into lyrical descriptive prose about circumstantial detail, it always means that Something is about to Happen. However, one can never be sure of what that is; and anyway, it is a perfectly accurate representation of human experience, where suddenly we do become much more aware of details at moments of stress.
Despite its strong links to previous books in the series, Resurrection Men works well as a standalone novel and would probably be a good place to start Rankin if you want to try.