Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer - who might just lead back to the infamous Bible John. And he's doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow's Mr Big. Added to that there are TV cameras at his back investigating a miscarriage of justice, making Rebus a criminal in the eyes of a million or more viewers. Just one mistake is likely to mean an unpleasant and not particularly speedy death or, worse still, losing his job.

'With Black & Blue Ian Rankin joins the elite of British crime writing' Marcel Berlins, THE TIMES

John Rebus, an outstanding creation . . . very ambitious and very confident with acute observation of the not so bonny side of Scotland'  Mike Ripley, DAILY TELEGRAPH

'An outstanding performance' SUNDAY TIMES

Ian Rankin was born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, and his first Rebus novel, Knots & Crosses, was published in 1987. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, as well as receiving two CWA Dagger Awards. In 2004, he won the prestigious Edgar Award for Resurrection, Men. Ian also recently received the OBE for services to literature.