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bibliobethreads's review against another edition
One of my favourite Rebus novels, bit of a dodgy subject area but handled very well and makes for a gripping read. And Rebus is back on the booze...is it wrong to like him better when he is?!
knick83's review
3.0
Not among the best books in the Rebus series, but still pretty good. There’s a lot of plot, as always with Rankin, but I felt the story could have moved at a slightly faster pace.
3,5 stars.
3,5 stars.
woolfardis's review
4.0
nonna7's review against another edition
4.0
Dead Souls was written in 1999 and depicts a John Rebus who is increasingly feeling dead inside and wondering if he should continue as a police officer. In the beginning of the book he is part of a stakeout of the Edinburgh zoo trying to find the person who is poisoning the animals. When he sees a known pedophile taking photos, he gives chase and, while he is going after the pedophile, the poisoner almost is able to do the deed yet again.
Darren Rouse, the pedophile, claims that he is taking a photography class and the zoo is his assignment. This claim is verified by his social worker. Rebus discovers that he is living in an apartment that overlooks a playground. He tells a reporter he knows about him who refuses to write the story, telling him that there is something inside him that has died.
The book has a number of different stories that come together, as always, in an interesting way. A former girlfriend of Rebus' when he was in high school contacts him about her missing son. A fellow police officer commits suicide by jumping off a high wall in Edinburgh. Meanwhile there is a trial going on of a former school in which two of the principals were involved in child abuse.
In addition, a convicted murderer who spent 25 years in an American prison has been released and deported to Edinburgh, where he grows up. He is seeking to settle old scores but not until he spends some time with a local reporter talking about his life for a series of articles.
Then there is the case of a missing boy who goes missing right around the time that it is discovered that Darren Rouse, the convicted pedophile, is living in the same apartment complex.
As always, it is complicated with a great deal of retrospection on Rebus' side as well as he examines his own conscience, wondering what has happened to him. As in so many of Rankin's books, it starts out a bit slow, but then things start to build up. It's really a great story.
Darren Rouse, the pedophile, claims that he is taking a photography class and the zoo is his assignment. This claim is verified by his social worker. Rebus discovers that he is living in an apartment that overlooks a playground. He tells a reporter he knows about him who refuses to write the story, telling him that there is something inside him that has died.
The book has a number of different stories that come together, as always, in an interesting way. A former girlfriend of Rebus' when he was in high school contacts him about her missing son. A fellow police officer commits suicide by jumping off a high wall in Edinburgh. Meanwhile there is a trial going on of a former school in which two of the principals were involved in child abuse.
In addition, a convicted murderer who spent 25 years in an American prison has been released and deported to Edinburgh, where he grows up. He is seeking to settle old scores but not until he spends some time with a local reporter talking about his life for a series of articles.
Then there is the case of a missing boy who goes missing right around the time that it is discovered that Darren Rouse, the convicted pedophile, is living in the same apartment complex.
As always, it is complicated with a great deal of retrospection on Rebus' side as well as he examines his own conscience, wondering what has happened to him. As in so many of Rankin's books, it starts out a bit slow, but then things start to build up. It's really a great story.
coralang's review against another edition
3.0
Bonnes et longues intrigues. J'y vois un certain parallèle avec Wallander: le sommeil, l'alcool, les tourments. Pas facile d'être un inspecteur.
geoffreyjen's review against another edition
4.0
Not my favorite Rebus, but for reasons I find hard to define. Wasn't entirely convinced by the pedophilia subplot, and Rebus seemed, to begin with, more manic than usual and then less manic than usual. Plot went through several additional twists past the climax, didn't seem to want to wind down. I thought it was trying to clean up loose ends, but like most Rebus books, it left several loose ends. Not that that's bad. Don't get me wrong, Rankin is an outstanding writer, this just wasn't my favorite of us.
tartancrusader's review
3.0
Aside from the first in the series, this might be my least favourite one so far. A few loose ends left me feeling frustrated and annoyed.
snowlilly's review against another edition
5.0
Best one yet. No wonder readers start with this book instead
lauranisbet's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
plantbirdwoman's review against another edition
5.0
After recently visiting the Edinburgh of Isabel Dalhousie in "The Careful Use of Compliments", I decided to linger a while. I've always liked Edinburgh, but I felt that I wanted to see a different side of it than the all thought and little action world of Isabel. Well, John Rebus is just the chap for that! No one could accuse him of living in a world of little action. As for thought, Rebus thinks a lot and usually gets to the answer to his problems in the end, but he is also known to act hastily and without much thought at times. That usually comes back to bite him and it does again in this book. The victims of his hastiness are the "dead souls" who haunt him.
This is one of the darker Rebus tales (not that any of them are especially light!) involving, as it does, pedophiles (who may or may not be linked to the Church), the suicide of a colleague, a psychopathic serial killer, and a bittersweet trip down memory lane as he is drawn into the search for a missing person, son of two of his classmates in school. Scotland is a small country and Edinburgh still has something of a village culture. You just know that somewhere along the way all these disparate stories are going to intersect and the result will probably not be pretty. But it will be entertaining.
Ian Rankin has created a compelling fictional figure in John Rebus. He is, at his core, a deeply moral character, but he has lost much of his faith, along with many friends and family members, along the way. Drink is his anesthetic of choice and he seems to require more and more of it to ease his pain. This cannot be leading to a good place.
I have enjoyed all of the Rebus novels, but I must say this is my favorite of the lot so far. The writing is crisp, the plotting is tight, and the main character seems more fully realized here than in any of the previous books, and none of them were half-bad either. The ending of the book left me wanting to get on to the next chapter in the story, and so I think I may linger in Edinburgh just a bit longer.
This is one of the darker Rebus tales (not that any of them are especially light!) involving, as it does, pedophiles (who may or may not be linked to the Church), the suicide of a colleague, a psychopathic serial killer, and a bittersweet trip down memory lane as he is drawn into the search for a missing person, son of two of his classmates in school. Scotland is a small country and Edinburgh still has something of a village culture. You just know that somewhere along the way all these disparate stories are going to intersect and the result will probably not be pretty. But it will be entertaining.
Ian Rankin has created a compelling fictional figure in John Rebus. He is, at his core, a deeply moral character, but he has lost much of his faith, along with many friends and family members, along the way. Drink is his anesthetic of choice and he seems to require more and more of it to ease his pain. This cannot be leading to a good place.
I have enjoyed all of the Rebus novels, but I must say this is my favorite of the lot so far. The writing is crisp, the plotting is tight, and the main character seems more fully realized here than in any of the previous books, and none of them were half-bad either. The ending of the book left me wanting to get on to the next chapter in the story, and so I think I may linger in Edinburgh just a bit longer.