Audiobook Books

For a long time I had anticipated the release of Lucasarts' new game, "The Force Unleashed." Ironically enough, I have yet to play any more than the demo, but ran out and purchased this novel and the companion graphic novel as well. Although the events laid out in literary form are indeed pivotal to the rest of the saga, they are related in a bland and distanced narrative. The characters themselves have promise, but their motives and choices are somewhat confusing and unbelievable. The 'tell it like it is' style of writing here is perhaps on par with a junior novel adaptation of a film, made all the worse by the fact that it covers the events of a video game. One can clearly pick out the "boss fights" as they would exist in the game and each chapter seems to cover a "level," as Starkiller hops from world to world. It's a format that's uninspired and sometimes downright frustrating.

For hardcore fans (like myself) you'll probably read it anyway, but for someone new to the Star Wars literary universe, pass it over and go for something along the lines of one of the Timothy Zahn novels (i.e. Heir to the Empire).

I liked the story a great deal. The book like the game is a bit short, I completed reading it in around three days of causal reading. It held my attention for sure. The pace of the book is very fast, I liked the fact that Williams didn't let it distort story or maybe the action was the story. Overall I'd give it a 4.5 stars but it didn't see an option for it.

My husband really liked this book. He said it was a good book to read and was well put together.

This book had huge potential but was completely ruined by the lack of accurate information. Maybe I'm just too much of a fan, but there are some serious contradictions to the already established Expanded Universe storyline. I feel like the creators of this story either didn't do any research or didn't care about the story thus far. I don't recommend this book to any of the bigger fans of Star Wars. I think the author made a decent attempt at writing a novel based off such a over the top video game, but the misinformation was too much for me.

If you haven't read the book and you want to, the rest of this review might spoil a little bit of the story so look away!

I won't go into much, but here are a few things I had problems with. Jedi Master Shaak Ti was killed in Episode III in every form of it. The deleted scene in the movie, the novel, even LEGO Star Wars. I did hear somewhere that the game creators just wanted to use her so they decided to overlook that small detail. Vader's helmet has red lenses. The book mentions how they are black. I know that this is a very small detail, and maybe I'm wrong about the Episode III Vader. But he I know he has red lenses in the original trilogy. At one point his helmet gets knocked off during a fight. He can't breathe without his helmet and In Shadows of the Empire he just gets to the point where he can breathe without it for 2 minutes of meditation. Meditation... Not during a lightsaber fight. The rebel leaders get rounded up and put on the Death Star and escape. The Radio Drama and the Han Solo trilogy by A.C. Crispin have already told us a little about how the rebellion was formed and how it found out about the Death Star. This was not it. Completely different. Plus, if Vader and the Emperor already knew who the rebellion leaders were, then why did they let them live after the events of this book?

I know this sounds a little picky of me, and some of my examples weren't very well written out or they weren't that important. But the contradictions just kept adding up and getting bigger and bigger until this video game based book became unbearable. So maybe this book is just better for the casual fan, and not the big Star Wars fan like me.

As much as I love Star Wars, I can't recommend this book. First, the main character, Starkiller seems too powerful. I don't believe at any time he even broke a sweat going against any non force user. I mean I know the Jedi/Sith are very strong, but come on! He performed stunts I don't think even Yoda could do on a good day!

Also, the books are supposed to harmonize. From my understanding, the Rebellion had its initial beginnings long before the time this book seems to make it (in the old Han Solo triliogy, the Rebels already had a small number of ships, and were trying to come together into an alliance.) In this book, it seems as if Starkiller did a few things that spanked the empire, and Bail Organa said, "that's cool-maybe we can rebel too!" It just seemed very unbelievable to me.

Another gripe I have with this book is that it seems to have no real idea how to make characters. I mean take the second Jedi that Starkiller went after. If you are in hiding from a galactic government that is eager to kill all Jedi, would you build a mock Jedi temple on a planet filled with scavenging scum who would sell information condemning their own mother for 2 credits? And, yes, he was obviously...unhinged, but I don't believe that explanation holds water for someone who has had the mental disciplines to be a Jedi anyway.

The only redemptive qualities of the book in my opinion are the droid Proxy (the idea of the holograms was cool!) and the Jedi Rahm Kota. His personality and fleshed-out characterization was interesting.

Another thing, why would Starkiller need a pilot? Darth Maul traveled alone, Vader can pilot a starfighter, and so it seems can any trained person. Wouldn't having another person knowing of a secret apprentice be a bad thing?

I'm sorry, but to me there are just too many plot holes for me to put this as part of Star Wars canon in my mind (like how if Bail Organa was already known as a rebel, why did Leia try to bluff her way with Vader at the beginning of a New Hope-the list goes on and on)

80 dollars is all to ridiculous for a CD that I want to use for 5 minutes merely to place on my iPod and never look at again. The only pieces that strike me as maybe not being public domain are the Copland selections. Ask your instructor or classmate for the discography and find it yourself. It takes some legwork but it's worth saving this ridiculous fee.

Rather than spend your money on this extremely overpriced set, choose from the following options:

1. Buy the book with the CD set, which is included as a "package deal"
2. "Get a used copy" of a friend's CD's (because you're probably buying this for a class).
3. Download the songs...they're all public domain and available online.

One of my favorites. Have read it twice. A must read for today's world.

Why did Ayn Rand write this book? That's a fair question to pose of any author, but with this particular author and with this particular book, it's an essential question. Was the purpose of the book its entertainment value, which is substantial, or was it to serve as a platform for objectivism, the philosophy prevalent throughout the book?

My personal feelings are it's probably about a 60/40 ratio with the bulk on the side of the philosophy. She makes such an effort to separate her main character, Howard Roark, from the rest of mankind and to show his lack of concern for anything outside of his own individual motivations, that he appears at times to be a little two dimensional. How else then could he hope to find happiness in his personal life except with a woman who is equally as unconcerned with rest of humanity as he is? While one bounces from one unfulfilling relationship to another, the other appears determined to destroy his own career in the pursuit of uncompromising ownership of the creative process. Still, you root for the hero and hold tight to the hope that substance and raw talent will win out over style and high society. But you're a cheering section of one, because not even the main character cares enough to join in.

The Fountainhead has substantial entertainment value however. Ayn Rand is a master of the descriptive scene as she focuses your attention to the most minute details such as the arch of Dominique's back in order to portray an atmosphere in a scene. In many cases, you may feel as though you're viewing a performance on stage rather than reading a book.

So, which is it? Entertainment or a thought-provoking examination? A little of both probably. I mean, isn't that what most great books offer?

Ayn Rand created a real, modern fairy tale with The Fountainhead. It is hard to find a more honorable literary figure than Rand's creation of Howard Roark. The focus of the novel is mainly set on the true natures of people. You find those who manipulate, those who bully, those who parasite, and one who stands only for purity in how he sees the world. You will also surely be able to point out appropriate figures in your own life as the are archetyped here.

The relationships among the players are complicated and seem at times to be become completely contradictory. The result is that those who need to build a common concept of purity ultimately lose out to those who bravely and independently create their own.

You may come away from this book actually believing in the fairy tale that honesty and purity (in purpose) can truly lead to poverty, but happiness.

The fountaun head is a great piece of Ayn Rand's work.
However I had trouble with 2 of the 6 discs I listened too. Returned the full set to Amazon.
Amazon got me a replacement set in nothing flat. Excellent service there. The replacement New set has 4 bad out of the 12 I have listened too. Its going back as well.
The manufaturer of these Audio books needs some new equipment of Quality control.

I'm not quite sure how she pulled it off, but with The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand managed to forge a literary masterpiece out of reheated libertarianism, stone age sexual politics, and dialogue that's so full of grandiose monologuing it would make William Shakespeare blush. I'm not being tongue-in-cheek here; I really do love this novel. I really do think that it's a jaw-dropping monument to the might of the individual, a symphonic ode to mankind's potential. Its seven-hundred pages see Rand laying waste to conventional standards, inverting all of society's most cherished values, and dropping more than a few subtle hints about the potential dangers of good intentions. Critics of Rand's work seem to miss out on the difference between quality and agreeability; they attack The Fountainhead for its philosophical underpinnings, calling it a piece of trash for no other reason than that they don't see things in quite the same way as Ayn Rand. They don't seem to care about its literary merit. Either that, or they just can't see the novel for what it is. They're completely oblivious to its ecstatic drama, angular poetry, remorseless tension, and epic scope. When they call Rand humorless, I have a hard time believing that they're missing out on the smirking satire and bruising irony that lurk beneath The Fountainhead's surface. When they call Rand inhuman, I wonder what they make of the dizzying panoply of characters that populate her work. Are they aware of the care she takes in evoking sympathy, even for her antagonists? Are they aware that she goes out of her way to remind us that Peter Keating, Alvah Scarret, and the Dean really are human beings? Even when she's depicting pure evil, Ayn Rand understands the importance of complexity, vision, and dimension; indeed, the novel's arch villain is every bit as masterful a creation as Shakespeare's Iago. Critics don't seem to appreciate the protagonist, either. I mean, do they really need to be told that Howard Roark is the very opposite of a soulless automaton, that he's the personification of struggle, of ambition, of hope, of everything that is pure and honest and noble about humanity? No, I don't sympathize with Rand's atheism (or with Roark's). I don't think that selfishness is as clear-cut a virtue as it's made out to be in her work. I am, for the most part (and I say this somewhat grudgingly), a liberal. I'm certainly not an objectivist, and I only have libertarian sympathies if you squint hard enough and ignore my views on our healthcare system. But that's beside the point; I'm not a Christian and I still like the Bible. I'm not an objectivist, and I absolutely adore The Fountainhead.

I remembered this fairy tale from my own childhood but was first introduced to this version by Paul Galdone when I found this book (and read it to my son) at my father-in-law's house. My son loves this book so much that every time we're at a playground with a bridge or tunnel he wants to play 'troll and billy goats'. I, myself, loved the illustrations so much that we bought a collection of Paul Galdone's stories which have become the reading addiction of my younger daughter (containing The 3 Pigs, The 3 Bears, Little Red Hen and Cat Goes Fiddle-i-Fee). Galdone is an illustrator par excellence-- his illustrations are compelling, dramatic, comical at times, and lively. His choices of color, detail, and perspective are creative and thoughtful. One of my top children's book illustrators!

My Mom has this story and loves reading it to my kids and the other grandchildren. All the kids love the modern version, especially the biggest billy goat in his leather jacket. Great fun!

I did not know from any of the information presented or even from the picture that this was a big book. That is the kind used in teaching young children. I merely wanted it for my grandson to be able to read and carry around. When I returned it I didn't check the box, unsatisfactory, so I had to pay for the shipping to return it. when trying to orde I also tried to piggy it back with the two Celtic Women cd's, so that I wouldn't have to pay extra shipping, but that didn't work as promised on the site. I adCeltic WomanThe Three Billy Goats Gruffmit I am new to shopping here, but some things seem a little unclear.

This has fast become one of my 2 year old's favorites. She can already recite the book almost word for word using different voices for each Billy Goat Gruff. We get a real kick out of listening to her "read" to herself!

I was just reminded of this teriffic retelling of Three Billy Goats Gruff. The suspense and pacing are brilliant. The illustrations are gorgeous AND funny. It was one of my all-time favorite read-alouds when I was a children's librarian. Galdone never failed in capturing the kids' imagination and story hour was always the better with one of his books. A MUST HAVE!

Jim is at it again. Butcher has two issue that keep the stories from being Masterful IMO. First is that he has too much going on all at once. There is almost never just one bad guy normal three or four coming from different angles. He is amazing in that the story does not end up with a lot of confusing. The second is that he writes every book for the mass audience. Where this is great for his publisher, hearing the recap gets a bit old for some of us when we hit book 10. I'd like to see him put a Dresdin companion in every book telling the story to date and explaining how spell circles work... Either way though i'm hooked and am going to keep reading.

joe

I've come to enjoy the "Dresden Files," and I can't wait for the next installment. "Why not rate 5 stars?," you ask? Well...there were more errors of spelling and grammar than I find acceptable. I don't think I'm a prude about such things, but I do have a limit. For instance, I couldn't find a single example of "praying mantis" not spelled "preying mantis," and it's repeated numerous times because of the storyline; I found it to be downright distracting. Errors also included subject/verb disagreements (makes me sound like an English teacher!), although these seem to be quite common these days.

My rating is 5 stars for story and 4 for editing, although 4 1/2 isn't an option on the scale. Keep them coming!!!

Truly one of the best books in The Dresden Files.

Small Favor feels like Harry is maturing and facing up to many of his new-found responsibilities. The action is fast paced and very exciting!

I'm a big fan of this series and have not yet been disappointed.
This book is exciting from the very beginning to the end. Can't wait for
the next one. I will however recommend that you start at the beginning
of the series to meet all the characters and learn the plot. I highly recommend this book. It is pure reading pleasure!!

I've been a fan of the series for it's tight plotting, interesting characters and developed world. The book started a bit slow for me, and some of the beginning seemed per forma. Fortunately, Butcher plots very well and once the story got going it sucked me in like a new Kirby, with a very interesting and challenging finish.

A thought-provoking an informative book, it provides new insight into the mind-brain system and has made me rethink my own thought processes. Sounds redundant, but it's true! Love the book.

This is an outstanding book; easy to read, useful tips, and written in a way that will engage the reader.

This book is great. It's a must for anyone who wants to know how to prolong and promote healthy brain functioning. It's full of useful advise on achieving this. It's one of the books that shall be read many more times 'cause it's that informative.

Good reading for how we can improve our brain power. Lot of medical details (maybe too much for me sometimes). Good information on foods that are good for your brain and also exercise and sports.

This is an excellent book: informative, clear, and packed with practical suggestions. Current brain research coupled with a wealth of individual case studies makes this a valuable guide.

I picked up this book when I was a junior in high school and I still read it on occasion, now that I'm in college. It's one of my most favorite books in the world, I urge you to not be swayed by the target demographic age. Pick this book up, whether you're a kid or an adult. It's a book of healing that can be understood by any age group.

This book is about an angry kid with an alcoholic father named Cole who is abused and beats up a kid named Peter. Cole has to live on an Alaskan island by himself as part of Circle Justice. He changes with some wise help along with this experience on the island. I got into this book from the beginning! It's a page turner with a somewhat predictable ending, but a good read!

This is an excellent story about Cole, an angry abused boy, who was mad at the world and his personal journey of dealing with his anger and becoming a better person through Circle Justice or Restoration Justice. He beat up Peter to the point of causing him permanent harm and never took any responsibility for his actions until he faced death and began questioning his life. This is a story about helping others and how the Circle Justice system works which Native Americans practiced for years.

The idea is to restore the criminal to become a good citizen and not just punish them. Instead of jail or a detention center, Cole was banished to live for a year on an island in Alaska alone. At the end of the year, the Circle Justice group, made up of all those involved, would meet again and determine if he should go to jail or not. Cole had a traumatic experience while on the island and after just three days was hospitalized after being mauled by a spirit bear. After his rehabilitation he went back. Peter tried committing suicide twice and Cole learned much while on the island, including how many mistakes he made and wanted to make things right if he could.

I really liked this book a lot and had trouble putting it down. I was anxious to see what would happen next. There is no boring part in it. There are many themes running through this book such as abuse, justice, survival, anger, forgiveness, healing.

My little one had to do a book report on Touching Spirit Bear so we read it together and shared the ideas. What an excellent story, written in language that a 12 year old can understand and with an deep message of self responsibility and healing of the spirit.

I highly recommend this book!

What a moving incredible story. I went out and 4 more copies immediately to give to friends either working in child detention or who have problem teenagers. A must listen for anyone who cares about the troubled teens of today.

For those of us that are Potter heads, it will always be hard to match the superb job that Jim Dale had done on the Harry Potter books. But be that as it may, Gerad has produced an awesome job on the Paolini books. Bravo Gerad!!

An excellent refresher for the story that has it's continuation this October, at last. The narrator does a marvelous job capturing characters with his voice and it moves well.

Good pack - wish there were less disks (like MP3/4 format) to deal with. First set had duplicate disk two and no disk one but Amazon quickly replaced it. Recording voice is great and story is easy to follow.

I have not read this book, so this review is about the actual pages of the book, which are those terribly cut pages that look like some kid in kindergarden using dull kiddy scissors cut the pages. I hate those pages, and had I known this book had them I would not have ordered this book!

"Traffic" freaked me out. I knew that 40,000 people died each year on our roads. And I knew that a car accident was the most likely way that trauma would encroach into my world. Vanderbilt gives me lots more things to worry about (like Dr's have the 2nd highest accident rate, pick-up trucks are dangerous to everyone else, new cars have higher accident rates then older cars, and intersections are bad news for bikers, runners, and drivers.

This is a book I'd like my girls to read as a prerequisite to getting their license (and I'll install the driver cam that Vanderbilt writes about being effective in teaching young drivers defensive skills).

Read the book. Slow down on the roads.

My husband has a long driving commute, and since he has talked about the best merging techniques and other traffic trivia, I thought he would like this audio book. He said there is a lot of boring narritive and few nuggets of info. He didn't even finish listening to the CD set. I wouldn't recommend it.

Most of us spend many hours in our cars, driving to and from all kinds of places. This summer I went on long car trips to Dallas (1100 miles one-way) and Charlotte, NC, (870 miles), as well as several shorter trips around Michigan and all the normal, everyday trips. Other than the price of gasoline, and the frequent irritation over construction detours and slowdowns, we don't generally do a lot of thinking about our driving. However, Tom Vanderbilt's book, Traffic, is a fascinating and fun look at this nearly universal activity of driving.
A few of the surprising things you'll learn include:
* Why it would reduce construction congestion if all drivers practiced late merging.
* Why it's safer for a bicycle rider to ride in the street than on the sidewalk.
* Why driving on a dangerous mountain road may actually be safer than driving on a wide-open freeway.
* Why the chance of you being injured in an automobile crash is higher if you drive a new car than if you drive an older car.
* Why fewer traffic signs may actually make for safer roads.
And that's just a small sampling!
Vanderbilt writes with humor and lots of anecdotes, but this is also a serious book which examines important issues such as traffic safety and congestion. He points out that "more people are killed on roads each month than were killed in the September 11 attacks," and he explores the reasons for this (and for why society isn't more concerned about traffic deaths). Mixed in throughout the book are plenty of statistical evidence and interviews with traffic experts.
When I was in college, I thought for awhile that I wanted to become a traffic engineer. I didn't do that, but had this book been available to me back then, perhaps my professional life might have taken a very different turn! If you're looking to learn something about an activity we all engage in, I think you'll thoroughly enjoy this book!

I agree with the many other reviewers who point out that "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" is not a particularly easy read. It is very detailed, parts of it are repetitious and there are many extraneous minutiae, such as, for example, the names, affiliations, appearances and capsule biographies of obscure traffic researchers. Most of these details could have been omitted or put into footnotes. Speaking of which, several reviewers disliked the 90 pages of unnumbered endnotes. I actually found these quite interesting, since most of them substantially expand on the main text rather than just list references. I didn't find them at all hard to deal with--I simply kept a second bookmark at the proper place in the endnotes section.

You can't help but learn something from this book. In particular, the Law of Unintended Consequences is alive and well in the endless conflict between logical traffic engineers and the perverse, often illogical driving public. The effects of efforts to improve roadway or vehicle safety are often exactly the opposite of what well-intentioned planners anticipate. For example, contrary to most traffic planning rules, and even common sense, there is considerable evidence that removing road signs, rather than erecting more, is a good way to reduce collisions. Likewise, the elimination of barriers between roadways, bicycle lanes and sidewalks in Dutch villages led to a great reduction in collisions--dire predictions to the contrary. This is fascinating, albeit somewhat academic, stuff, which unfortunately is not very useful in everyday driving.

What IS particularly useful, however, is Chapter Nine, "Why You Shouldn't Drive With a Beer-Drinking Divorced Doctor Named Fred on Super Bowl Sunday in a Pickup Truck in Rural Montana: What's Risky on the Road and Why." Vanderbilt shows how most drivers' perceptions of risk on the road are completely wrong. For example, many car drivers think semi-trucks are the greatest danger on the road. But studies show the REAL danger arises from the car drivers' themselves, and their reactions to the presence of the much larger vehicles. The study of risk is exceptionally complicated, but Vanderbilt does a great job of putting it in terms nearly anyone can understand. He discusses, in this very entertaining and informative chapter, the risks associated with various types of vehicles, alcohol consumption, gender, sex, age, time of day, type of roadway, speed, cell phones, seat belts, and many other factors. He explains why two highly touted vehicle safety improvements--the Center High Mounted Stop Light (CHMSL) and Anti-Lock Brake Systems (ABS)--had nowhere near the effect on reducing crashes as their proponents assured the public they would have. Much of this chapter is information you can use the next time you hop into your car and head off to work or to the mall.

I recommend "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us)" if you are at all interested in the technical, psychological and sociological esoterica of automobiles, their drivers, the roadways on which they operate and the environments with which they interact. It's a bit heavy going in some parts, but it's worth sticking with to the end. You may even become a better driver from having read it.

Well, if it was, then it is a fine and fitting end. Although the cliffhanger tells us that we aren't going to be seeing that much less of Rebus.

Rankin used the self imposed limitation of the last ten days of Rebus official career very well. The action is taut and well plotted and the descriptions of people, places, and things are spot-on.

By now, Rebus is like an old friend who drops in for a short visit every year or so. You are always glad to see him, you get nostalgic over the good times you have had together, you are shocked by how old they have gotten, which reminds you of how old you are getting, you get annoyed by the same things they have always done, and you are sad whenever they have to leave. In this case, there is a finality to the departure, yet you are not sure if that finality is terminal. It is somewhat confusing.

I thought the awkwardness depicted between Rebus and Clarke is well written and realistic. It is very tricky to describe the interaction between people who have known, liked, and hated each other for a long time, especially when a landmark is approaching in their relationship.

The crimes being solved in this case was interesting but I thought some of the turns were a little too pat. That didn't stop me from enjoying the book, nor does it stop me from jonesing for more Rebus and Clarke.

Say it isn't so, Ian. Has 60-year-old John Rebus come to the end of the line? The popular protagonist spends his last days in his three-decade-old career in this novel in his usual manner, solving crimes, upsetting the powers that be and dealing with his 20-year-old enemy, Big Ger Cafferty as well as setting the stage for tying up loose ends with his long-time partner, DS Siobhan Clarke.

In the mix is a delegation of Russian businessmen, Scottish politicians and a large bank and its executives all seeking to bring business to Scotland. And then a leading Russian dissident poet is found murdered, and everyone wants to sweep it under the rug as a mugging gone bad. But is it? Neither Rebus nor Clark is convinced, especially when a second murder caused by an arson fire seems to be connected to the original case. To complicate matters, Big Ger is assaulted and left in a coma, and Rebus seems to be implicated.

This novel is as good as Rankin gets in the way of a mystery novel, and he works in commentary on Scotland in general, Edinburgh, money, politics, greed and power. Where does Rebus go from here? This reader (and many others, I'm sure) hopes Rankin hasn't permanently retired him--he's too good a character to fade out of existence.

Highly recommended.

Almost exactly two decades ago Ian Rankin's first Rebus novel, Knots and Crosses, began with the sentence, "The girl screamed once, only the once." Twenty years later and Rankin has used the same sentence to begin the last, as it did the first, of the Rebus books.

DI John Rebus is retiring in November of 2006 and he and his erstwhile protégé, DS Siobhan Clarke, are working on clearing up Rebus' old cases, when a dissident Russian Poet is murdered in an apparent mugging right after he left an Edinburgh bar in which local crook and longtime Rebus nemesis Morris Gerald Cafferty had been drinking.

Meanwhile Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko is dying in a London hospital, poisoned by person or persons unknown. Are the cases related?

The poet was murdered during a time when the Edinburgh big wigs are hosting a group of potentially very large Russian investors and the brass wants this case wrapped up as quietly and delicately as possible. Then somebody attacks `Big Ger' Cafferty and the blame lands squarely on Rebus.

Think he's gonna back off? Not a chance.

Rebus and Clarke chase down leads that eventually take them to the Scottish Parliament and we all know how much politicians like to be investigated. And if you've read or learned anything at all about John Rebus, you know he does not take too well to authority and after being told for the umpteenth time to back off, Rebus remarks to himself, "It's not the underworld you need to worry about, it's the overworld."

I have been reading Rebus right from the start and I find it hard to believe it's all over. Yes, he's retired, but Michael Connelly's brilliant character Detective Hyronamous Bosch retired, came back as a PI and we sure as all get out hope Mr. Rankin finds more for Rebus to do, because we're addicted. This book is as good as all the others and all the others have been great.

Reviewed by Vesta Irene

Ian Rankin
ISBN: 9780316057585
Little Brown and Company, 2008
Reviewed by Debra Gaynor for ReviewYourBook.com, 09/08
4 Stars
Fans will be thrilled with the return John Rebus.
Fans will be thrilled with the return of Detective Inspector John Rebus. Exit Music begins with the Inspector reluctantly preparing for his mandatory retirement. Just as he thinks his desk is clear of cases in comes a new one. Rebus once again teams up with Detective Siobhan Clarke in the investigation of a murdered dissident Russian poet. What at first glance appears to be a mugging, soon shows signs of something much deeper. Another death brings more questions.
Exit Music shows a personal side of Rebus. He dreads retirement while partner Siobhan looks toward a future where she does not work in his shadow. Ian Rankin has open doors in which Rebus may return. Fans of Rankin will rejoice in this new novel. While they will mourn Rebus' purported retirement, they will eagerly turn the pages of Exit Music.

In Ian Rankin's "Exit Music," Detective Inspector John Rebus is ten days away from retirement, a prospect that appeals to him as much as root canal. His superiors eagerly await the departure of this maverick, with "his mistrust of teamwork" and his "two-decades-plus of bets hedged, lines crossed, and rules broken." Although John gets results, he rarely does anything by the book, since he has little regard for authority or proper procedure. It is a miracle that this chain-smoking and whiskey-guzzling detective has lived long enough to turn in his warrant card. Rebus's protégée, Detective Sergeant Siobhan (Shiv) Clarke, has mixed feelings about her friend and mentor's departure. She is grateful for everything he has taught her. On the other hand, his unorthodox methods are troubling and she is impatient to get out from under Rebus's imposing shadow.

Their final case together begins as an apparent mugging that results in the death of Alexander Todorov, an émigré Russian poet living in Edinburgh. Todorov was a dissident who was vocal in his criticism, not only of his former government, but also of the new class of Russian oligarchs. He considered these multi-millionaires to be materialistic, corrupt, and greedy--selfish men who spend their ill-gotten gains on fancy clothing, high-end cars, pricey real estate, precious metals, and expensive artwork. Was Todorov bludgeoned to death to silence his scathing criticism of his countrymen? A subsequent murder adds to the mystery, and Clarke is placed in charge of a team with a challenging and time-consuming mission. They must ascertain if the two crimes are related and if so, who was behind them. Rebus is intrigued to learn that his archenemy, a gangster knows as Big Ger Cafferty, may be involved. Before he walks off into the sunset, Rebus would love to bring down this vicious thug who has been a thorn in his side for years.

"Exit Music" is an incredibly complicated and dense police procedural with a large number of characters, suplots, and red herrings. This four hundred page novel, which is sluggishly paced at times, could easily have been trimmed with no loss of coherence. On the other hand, the author gets high marks for depicting police work realistically, demonstrating the tedium of endless conversations with potential witnesses (some of whom lie or omit information), the sifting of every bit of physical evidence, and the search for a key fact that could break a case wide open. He also brings Edinburgh to life and deftly portrays the political and economic changes that may lead, one day, to Scotland's independence from Great Britain. Rebus is a delightful rogue who is content to say and do what he likes now that he is days away from packing it in. Although he is not in charge of the investigation, John blithely goes off on his own to follow his hunches wherever they may lead.

What makes this book memorable is Rankin's stunning epilogue--a tour de force of superb writing and dramatic surprises. The fact that the ending is not neat and tidy makes it a fitting coda for the checkered career of Detective Inspector John Rebus, a man who has always lived on the edge and thumbed his nose at conventional wisdom.