Brilliant, irascible, and frequently frustrating to both his friends and his long-suffering bosses, Detective Inspector John Rebus has been leading readers into the darkest parts of Edinburgh since the 1987 novel Knots and Crosses. The prolific Ian Rankin has not only given us a score of novels but also dozens of Rebus short stories, all of which are collected in this hefty omnibus. These 29 tales (two of them written for this collection) follow Rebus from his beginnings as a young Detective Constable right up to his dramatic—if not quite final— retirement, investigating the sinister cases that are his specialty and confirming his reputation as "one of the great modern cops" (Washington Post).