Journal Entry 1 by cats-eye from Bishop Auckland, County Durham United Kingdom on Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Amazon.co.uk Review:

Fleshmarket Close is not one of the best of Rankin's John Rebus thrillers, but his second-best is still more than excellent. Middle age is catching up with Rebus--he currently has no desk as a none-too-subtle hint from his superiors that he should seek retirement--but he and his friend and protegee Siobhan, who is still not his lover, race around investigating a variety of seemingly unconnected cases… The sister of a dead rape victim is missing; stolen medical skeletons turn up embedded in a concrete floor; a Kurdish journalist is brutally killed; the son of a Glasgow ganglord has moved in to the Edinburgh vice scene.

Much of the book is dominated by two new settings--a sink estate divided between racist thugs and refugees, and a small town whose economy is dominated by an internment camp for those about to be deported; this is one of Rankin's preachier thrillers, but it is never less than intelligent and evocative in its descriptions of a contemporary squalor that spreads beyond the inner city. These are never quite orthodox police procedurals--Rebus' method is a little too like the standard private eye's way of wandering around being rude to people until something comes loose--but they have a deep seriousness about the way we live now that transcends mere noir moodiness.
--Roz Kaveney, Amazon.co.uk 

Journal Entry 2 by cats-eye at Given to a fellow bookcrosser in Controlled release, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- United Kingdom on Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Released 6 yrs ago (11/15/2005 UTC) at Given to a fellow bookcrosser in Controlled release, -- By post or by hand/ in person -- United Kingdom

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Journal Entry 3 by Kislany on Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Thank you, received it today. 

Journal Entry 4 by Kislany on Saturday, July 29, 2006

Reserved for my booksis after reading.