Onyx reviews: Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 12/22/2024

Former Inspector John Rebus finds himself in the same place where he put so many other people he investigated: Her (or is it His?) Majesty's Prison Edinburgh. He's been found guilty of attempted murder in the death of his longtime nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty. Although he's been sentenced to life (which may not be long given his advanced age and health issues), his lawyers promise they'll be able to successfully appeal his conviction, but they have been strangely and frustratingly incommunicative lately.

Rebus isn't safe from crime behind bars, though; no one is. Another prisoner on his block is murdered after lights out, stabbed to death while his cellmate slept the sleep of the heavily drugged in an apparently locked cell. The murder weapon is nowhere to be found. Suspicion immediately falls on the prison guards. Who else would have been able to avoid the cameras and enter the cell and smuggle out the knife? When Rebus's former colleagues arrive to investigate, he does his best to insinuate himself into the case, and DS Christine Esson is happy to have someone on the inside to help explain the lay of the land.

Out in the real world, Rebus's former protégée, DI Siobhan Clarke, is working the case of a missing 14-year-old girl who has gotten herself wrapped up in the world of online pornography and exploitation. The third player in the novel is Malcolm Fox, who was once the lead in another Rankin novel but has more recently been relegated to the supporting cast. In his more recent appearances, Fox has become shiftier and less likable. The latest black mark on his career is that he recruited Siobhan to join his team in Professional Standards and she left quickly after discovering what it was like to work with him.

There's a connection between Fox, now in Organized Crime, and the murdered prisoner that Fox would be happy to keep quiet. Fox had Jackie Simpson break in somewhere so he could use the subsequent investigation as an excuse to search a place that would otherwise have been off limits. His constant failure to reveal crucial details about both investigations will come back to bite him.

One of Rebus's fellow prisoners, Darryl Christie, sees himself as Cafferty's replacement. As a token of thanks to Rebus for getting the former kingpin out of the way, whether deliberately or not, Christie vouches for Rebus's safety in HMP Edinburgh, an important consideration now that Rebus is out of isolation and in general population, where a few other prisoners wouldn't mind doing him harm. Rebus also has an uneasy alliance with the prison guards and warden. In the past, they were both on the same side of the law, so they're willing to provide Rebus with information, except when it seems like he might be investigating them.

The murder case and the missing girl seem to be unrelated, but Edinburgh is a small city and there's a lot of overlap between its criminal population. Soon the tangled web Rankin has been weaving becomes clear. This is the twenty-fifth Rebus adventure but hopefully not the last, as Rebus's future is still very much in question at the end of Midnight and Blue. There may be some life left in the old man yet.