The Sunday Telegraph raves, No one captures the noirish side of the
city as well as Rankin, and The Black Book is one of his best.
Five years ago, a mysterious fire burned Edinburgh's seed Central Hotel
to ashes. Long-forgotten and unsolved, the case reappears when a charred
body--with a bullet in its head--is found amongst the ruins. Inspector
John Rebus knows that his superiors would rather he let sleeping dogs
lie. He knows that part of the answer lies somewhere in a cryptic black
notebook. And he knows that to solve the case, he'll have to peel back
layer upon layer of unspeakable secrets to arrive at the truth. . .