I picked this up from the lobby of my hotel in Paris and read half of it on the plane ride home to the US. It is my second Rankin book; I remember enjoying the first and felt the need to read a mystery whose writing wasn't insipid. I'll be finishing it up soon so thought I'd get it registered and into the Bookcrossing world!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sending out in the mail today.

Ian Rankin is just a fine crime writer. Even though I tend to gravitate towards historical mysteries, I think this is only because they generally seem to be well written and don't have lots of blood and gore. But Rankin's books are wonderfully engaging; you know it will all come together, and the characters and dialogues are wonderfully rendered. I don't know Edinburgh very well, and so some of the references didn't mean much, and sometimes even the words were strange and unknown to me, but it doesn't at all spoil the reading; if anything, it adds an aura of the unreal! I'd like to go back and read the earlier books (the only other I have read is Mortal Causes)... but it is easy enough to get the feel for the main characters. Siobhan is feisty and smart, Rebus is clever and his own man, other characters always stay in character. Rankin has done an interesting job here with introducing the tough issue of illegal and even legal immigrants into our Western Culture. His streak of humanism is obvious and welcome. Anyway, I am sending this on on my daughter Neuilly who is in need of a good mystery right now.

I received this as a RABCK from MmeClinton and look forward to reading it. I've had bad luck with the last few mysteries I've read, but MmeClinton's comments about this one have me really exciting.