Onyx reviews: In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 10/22/2018

When private detective Stuart Bloom disappeared twelve years ago, he was working for film producer Jackie Ness. Edinburgh businessman Adrian Brand wanted a piece of property in Poretoun Woods for a golf course. Ness wanted to build a movie studio there and hired Bloom to find out if Brand was bribing officials to sway the decision over who could purchase it. Bloom's last reported sighting was a visit to Ness to deliver a progress report. The fact that Bloom, openly gay, was in a relationship with the son of a Glasgow cop complicates matters.

Four boys discover an abandoned car in a gully. When they open the trunk, they discover a body that proves to be Bloom's. It's clad in the clothes he was last seen wearing; however, the forensics team finds something that doesn't belong: handcuffs, perhaps police issue. Not on the body's wrists, though—on his ankles. Could someone from the original investigation have been involved in Bloom's disappearance? That his body and car were found on the disputed property seems significant, but it's unlikely they've been there over a decade. The woods were thoroughly searched several times. But why would someone move the body after all these years?

The original police investigation attracted a lot of scrutiny, not to mention vocal complaints from the missing man's family over how the case was handled—or mishandled. While Inspector Rebus wasn't the lead investigator, he was involved. He's now retired and in a state of "managed decline," suffering from COPD (leave it to him to acquire an affliction with the letters C-O-P, a former colleague muses) that leaves him struggling to mount the two flights of stairs to his flat. His only companion is a dog named Brillo, which he dutifully walks regularly, making sure he's in sight of the house owned by his old nemesis Big Ger Cafferty.

Much has changed in the interim. Ness now makes pornographic movies and his business rival is now Sir Adrian Brand. The property, though, remains undeveloped. Because of the question of potential police involvement, and because Rebus is retired, he can't be seen to be actively involved in the investigation. Which, of course, doesn't prevent him from sticking his nose in whenever possible. His former protégé DI Siobhan Clarke is determined to keep him busy, though. She's been receiving harassing phone calls from the father of a teenager she helped send to prison for murdering his girlfriend and she's second-guessing the case. Rebus is like a dog with a bone, so she hopes that if she can side-track him with an unrelated inquiry, it will keep him on the sidelines.

Clarke was recently investigated by a pair of cops in the Anti Corruption Unit (Internal Affairs) who accused her of leaking material to the press. These same two officers were part of the team investigating Bloom's disappearance. Clarke is assigned to the new investigation in part because of her dealings with ACU, but also because she's an experienced cop with a good track record. There's also a place on the task force for Malcolm Fox, formerly of "the complaints." Fox's job is to determine whether police actions during the initial investigation require prosecution or punishment. He knows that old cases can be "like stripping wallpaper — you don't know what problems you're going to find beneath, kept hidden by the thinnest of coverings."

Police Scotland has changed since Bloom's disappearance, something Rankin has detailed in previous books, during which Rebus has aged in real time. Some of the familiar old buildings and headquarters are no longer in use, and centralization of certain divisions means that local intelligence is no longer disseminated as efficiently as it once was. Police tactics have changed, too, and it's no longer possible to strong arm a confession out of someone or rely on shady sources (like Cafferty) without looking corrupt. Or maybe that's just the old dogs' way of looking at things, and Rebus is as old a dog as there is, smelling of "old days and old ways." There's nothing wrong with his brain, though, although he's wary of new developments like social media.

More than one edifice stands as a candidate for the title reference. Is the House of Lies the old police headquarters where the original investigation took place, or the new one, where corrupt anti-corruption cops attempt to influence the inquiry? Or does the title refer to the house where the teenager from Clarke's case lived, or the prison where he's now incarcerated? Or Big Ger's house, which Rebus still visits on occasion? Or Rebus's flat itself, where the retired but not dead former cop spins out strategies to conclude cases that are definitely old school? This latest installment demonstrates that Rankin and Rebus still have it. The resolutions of both cases are as satisfying as they are unexpected.