Book review: Gamekeeper turns poacher as Rebus winds up in dock in Ian Rankin's latest novel

Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin’s fictional detective John Rebus is in the twilight of his career and the novels now have an elegaic, bittersweet quality.

Ian Rankin is as good and as relevant as ever, writing with renewed vigour as he holds his creation and, vicariously, himself up to scrutiny

There's a shock for Rebus fans in the opening line of A Heart Full of Headstones: “John Rebus had been in court plenty of times, but this was his first time in the dock.”

As he’s remanded to HMP Edinburgh, albeit in an unshared cell and swapping stories with the prison guards, we take it that he’s not up for an unpaid parking fine on the Saab.