- Hardcover: 80 pages
- Publisher: Orion; First Edition edition (16 Nov 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0752824864
- ISBN-13: 978-0752824864
- Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 13.4 x 1.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 416,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Damon Mee was last seen in a blurred security video on the dance floor of a Kirkaldy nightclub. It was a routine missing persons case and it wasn't even on his patch, but inspector John rebus said he'd look into it as a favour to the boy's father, a friend from his school days. In the deft hands of Ian Rankin, the ripples of the investigation widen rapidly. They lead to the club's greasy owner, to a slightly bent casion croupier, to a drop dead blonde whose name nobody seems to know, to a Hibs striker with a talent for goals and a weakness for gambling and finally to the shadowed men who call the shots in Edinburgh's underworld. When it's over, Rebus has repaid a debt and his boss has received an unexpected birthday present.
About the Author
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 thirty-six languages and are bestsellers worldwide. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been shortlisted for the Anthony Award in the USA, won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, Edinburgh, Hull and the Open University. A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts. Rankin is a number one bestseller in the UK and has 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.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you've never read one of Ian Rankin's extraordinary John Rebus mysteries, "Death is Not the End" is a great introduction to the troubled Edinburgh detective and his dark world. On the surface, it's a police procedural (the Rebus books remind me of the also-excellent Bill James "Harpur and Iles" British police procedurals), but Rebus is such a loner, breaking out into his own investigations, that it's virtually a private detective novel as well. This imagery fits "Death is Not the End" especially well as the (intentional) echoes of Raymond Chandler and the theme of "vanishing"--from missing persons to long-lost youthful innocence--permeate Rankin's alcoholic, cigarette-addicted hero's search for the son of an old girlfriend. It's a quick read, but layered with such detail that this would make me want to read more Rebus mysteries even if I wasn't already a fan. This *is* pricey for a 74-page book, even a hardcover (this novella might have been better served by publishing it as trade paperback original). Rankin also re-used part of this plot for a recent novel ("Dead Souls"). Some may see this as a cheap excuse to get you to buy the same plot twice; I prefer to look at it as an interesting exercise in covering the same themes in a different manner and from different angles. It is by no means the best or definitive Rebus--one of the full-length novels must surely fill that role. Still, if you're a Rankin fan and completist you'll definitely want this one, and it makes a great introduction to suggest to your friends searching for a captivating crime series and a brilliant author.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you've never read one of Ian Rankin's extraordinary John Rebus mysteries, "Death is Not the End" is a great introduction to the troubled Edinburgh detective and his dark world. On the surface, it's a police procedural (the Rebus books remind me of the also-excellent Bill James "Harpur and Iles" police procedurals), but Rebus is such a loner, breaking out into his own investigations, that it's virtually a private detective novel as well. This imagery fits "Death is Not the End" especially well as the (intentional) echoes of Raymond Chandler and the theme of "vanishing"--from missing persons to long-lost youthful innocence--permeate Rankin's alcoholic, cigarette-addicted hero's search for the son of an old girlfriend. It's a quick read, but layered with such detail that this would make me want to read more Rebus mysteries even if I wasn't already a fan. I agree in part with the other reviewers: this is pricey for a book of this size. Rankin also re-used part of this plot for a recent novel ("Dead Souls"). Some may see this as a cheap excuse to get you to buy the same plot twice; I prefer to look at it as an interesting exercise in covering the same themes in a different manner and from different angles. It is by no means the best or definitive Rebus--one of the full-length novels must surely fill that role. Still, if you're a Rankin fan and completist you'll definitely want this one, and it makes a great introduction to suggest to your friends searching for a captivating crime series and a brilliant author.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
"Death Is Not the End," (2000) is a 70-page novella. If you were counting, it would be ninth, and although by far the shortest, by no means least, in the Detective Chief Inspector John Rebus series, by the outstanding author Ian Rankin, currently the best-selling author of mysteries in the United Kingdom. Rankin was nominated for an Edgar Award for Black And Blue, for which he won England's prestigious Gold Dagger Award. This novella can, like most of his work, be described as a police procedural, within the tartan noir school, and it is set in Edinburgh, in contrast to most Scots mystery writers at work now. The east coast Edinburgh is more or less his home town; in comparison to the west coast Glasgow, it's a more beautiful, smaller city, the capital of the country, where you might expect the crime to be white collar, rather than blue, and bloody. But Rebus always seems to find enough to keep busy. Now, just what's tartan noir when it's at home, you ask? A bloodthirsty, bloody-minded business, to be sure, more violent than the average British mystery, but, thankfully, leavened a bit with that dark Scots humor. Written (duh!) by Scots.
"Death," in its brief length, gives us two subplots. Matty Paine, who'd worked his way around the world as a croupier, only to end up back in his old home town of Edinburgh, working in a mob-connected casino (are there any other kind?) His work and his friendships will put him in danger; Rankin will get a chance to bring his favorite mobster, Big Ger Cafferty, into the mix. This subplot might well be considered fairly insubstantial. The other, stronger, more resonant subplot concerns the missing son of two of Rebus's schoolmates from childhood days in Fife: Brian and Janis Mee. To quote the author from his afterword on the subject, "I wrote this novella a couple of years ago....The theme of `vanishing' has stayed with me ever since, to the extent that I have, in Raymond Chandler's phrase, `cannibalized' part of it for a sub-plot in the subsequent full-length Rebus novel,Dead Souls, while altering the histories of the characters involved so that both can be read independently."
However, I see that most reviewers believe things happened the other way around, and that Rankin cannibalized "Dead Souls" for this novella. In any event, his folding this subplot into the other novel resulted in what I believe to be a mistake in that other novel. But back to this novella. It gives us some of the most beautiful, brilliant, high-energy writing Rankin has ever done, particularly on Edinburgh, and the ancient "Kingdom" of Fife, best-known now for its now slumbering coal mines, and its vanished linoleum factory. Also as the birthplace of Adam Smith, the most dismal of economists pursuing that dismal science. And, currently, as the birthplace of Val McDermid, another leading light in the tartan noir school; and of Gordon Brown, currently British Prime Minister.
"Death," in its brief length, gives us two subplots. Matty Paine, who'd worked his way around the world as a croupier, only to end up back in his old home town of Edinburgh, working in a mob-connected casino (are there any other kind?) His work and his friendships will put him in danger; Rankin will get a chance to bring his favorite mobster, Big Ger Cafferty, into the mix. This subplot might well be considered fairly insubstantial. The other, stronger, more resonant subplot concerns the missing son of two of Rebus's schoolmates from childhood days in Fife: Brian and Janis Mee. To quote the author from his afterword on the subject, "I wrote this novella a couple of years ago....The theme of `vanishing' has stayed with me ever since, to the extent that I have, in Raymond Chandler's phrase, `cannibalized' part of it for a sub-plot in the subsequent full-length Rebus novel,Dead Souls, while altering the histories of the characters involved so that both can be read independently."
However, I see that most reviewers believe things happened the other way around, and that Rankin cannibalized "Dead Souls" for this novella. In any event, his folding this subplot into the other novel resulted in what I believe to be a mistake in that other novel. But back to this novella. It gives us some of the most beautiful, brilliant, high-energy writing Rankin has ever done, particularly on Edinburgh, and the ancient "Kingdom" of Fife, best-known now for its now slumbering coal mines, and its vanished linoleum factory. Also as the birthplace of Adam Smith, the most dismal of economists pursuing that dismal science. And, currently, as the birthplace of Val McDermid, another leading light in the tartan noir school; and of Gordon Brown, currently British Prime Minister.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
For completists only
Big fan of Rebus but this didn't grab me so much. Prefer Rebus in a longer form, personally. Part of the plot was used in Dead Souls (which I liked) as well. Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mr. Gareth Price
Rankin novella
Bought as a gift for a Rankin fan. It was gratefully received but I didn't read it. The recipient was pleased with it though.
Published on 1 April 2010 by Carole
cynical exploitation of rebus fans?
First, let me say that i am a big Ian Rankin fan. However i have to ask why this novella was ever published. Read more
Published on 4 Feb 1999
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