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by Ian Rankin
Nobody likes The Complaints--they're the cops who investigate other cops. It's a department known within the force as "The Dark Side," and it's where Malcolm Fox works. He's a serious man with a father in a nursing home and a sister who persists in an abusive relationship, frustrating problems about which he cannot seem to do anything.
Then the reluctant Fox is given a new case. There's a cop named Jamie Breck, and he's dirty. The problem is, no one can prove it. As Fox takes on the job, he learns that there's more to Breck than anyone thinks--dangerous knowledge, especially when a vicious murder takes place far too close to home.
In The Complaints, Rankin proves again why he is one of the world's most beloved and bestselling crime writers, mixing unstoppable pacing with the deeper question of who decides right from wrong.
"Starred Review. Rankin's plotting and prose are as compelling as ever." - Kirkus
"Starred Review... Few authors equal his character-driven crime fiction that pulls the reader into such vividly drawn place and plot. Highly recommended." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. A new series from the internationally best-selling Rankin is very big news in the mystery world..." - Booklist
"Rankin is a master at what, for me, is one of the important aspects of a crime novel: the integration of setting, plot, characters and a theme which, for Rankin, is the moral dimension never far from his writing. ... Fox is so fully realised and interesting a character, his job in 'the complaints' so fraught with fascinating possibilities, that we can surely hope to meet him again." - The Guardian (UK)
"Rankin delivers... an excellent cop novel full of action, good dialogue, well-crafted characters and an authentic backdrop." - The Times (UK)
"With its Edinburgh setting, suave crime lords and renegade officers, The Complaints will be familiar territory to Rebus fans - even if its hero isn't. Getting to know this man, an intriguing mix of apathy and action, is almost like a courtship - each new situation reveals something that makes the reader want to know yet more." -The Independent (UK)
This information about The Complaints was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
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.
After university and before his success with his Rebus novels, Ian had a number of jobs including working as a grape-picker, a swineherd, a journalist for a hi-fi magazine, and a taxman. Following his marriage in 1986, he lived briefly in London where he worked at the National Folktale Centre, followed by a short time living in France, before returning to Edinburgh.
Ian's first novel Summer Rites remains in his bottom drawer, but his second novel, The Flood, was published in 1986, while his first Rebus novel, Knots & Crosses, was published in 1987. The Rebus series is now ...
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