Rebus’ daughter Sam begins to understand the reality of her Dad’s working life from her dealings with the police relating to her partner’s disappearance. It’s as if both father and daughter are starting to realise the missed opportunities to get to know each other as she grew up. How hard it would be to make amends. He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective? As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find… The twenty third novel featuring now retired Edinburgh police Inspector John Rebus finds him trying to help out his somewhat estranged daughter, Samantha, when her partner disappears. Meanwhile, former colleague DI Siobhan Clarke is caught up in the investigation of the murder of a wealthy Saudi student. At some point, some of the people in both cases intersect…could the cases be related? Or not? At least Rebus’ faithful companion, his wee dog Brillo, is there, keeping him company. He’s smuggled his way even further into Rebus’ heart, and now sleeps in his bed. A fact which Rebus vigorously denies. It still warms my heart that this mite is playing on Rebus’ “human” side, as while a fulltime copper, he didn’t have time to love another, whether family, lover, or other. It was all about the case load. He lived and breathed his work. Total commitment.

I have been reading this series so long now that each new book gets an automatic five stars. I like all the characters, cannot fault the writing style, and always enjoy the humour and the police work. When I sit down with Inspector Rebus and Siobhan Clarke I know I am in for a good time. My wife used to say it was like I was having an affair - staying out too late, not home most weekends. And even when I did go home, the cases would still be in here.’ He tapped his forehead.” Ian Rankin has definitely still got it. After reading a couple of rather disappointing new books from long-established authors I approached this with a little trepidation, but I enjoyed it very much. A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. As this twenty third book in the series opens Rebus is moving house. Well strictly speaking he’s still in the same building but moving down from his upper floor flat to the ground floor. He’s suffering from COPD, a chronic disease that obstructs the flow of air to his lungs. That means no ciggies and no booze. Oh dear, this isn’t going to be quite the same John Rebus regular readers (like me) have grown to know and love. He’s retired now from his role as a senior Edinburgh detective but he stays close to DI Siobhan Clarke – who is actually at this point helping him with the logistics of the move. However, Rebus is distracted by an urgent call from his daughter, her partner Keith has gone missing and she’s fraught with worry. Nothing to do but leave things in Siobhan’s capable hands and skedaddle up to the far north coast of Scotland where she lives. Retired he may be but here’s a ‘case’ he can get teeth into.Mark Sanderson, “The best crime fiction for October 2020 — Ian Rankin’s thriller is perfect for our dark times,” The Times 29 September 2020

In a Prologue, Rebus moves down two flights of stairs to the ground-floor flat in the same Arden Street tenement, with a lot of help from Siobhan Clarke. His first morning in the new flat, he gets a call from his daughter Samantha saying her partner, Keith, is missing. Book Genre: British Literature, Crime, Cultural, European Literature, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Scotland, Thriller Andrew Taylor Older and grumpier: A Song for the Dark Times, by Ian Rankin, reviewed Rebus now has difficulty climbing the stairs — and a murder on the north coast leads to clashes with his daughter There are perhaps one or two coincidences too many and it may not be absolute classic Rankin, but I enjoyed it so much that I’ve rounded 4.5-stars up to 5. Warmly recommended. Ian Rankin's Rebus novels have always been thoroughly entertaining. However, the recent entries in the series show that the author is having trouble squeezing his legendary creation into the crimes he is investigating. This latest story is more personal, so Rebus becoming involved is more natural.What follows is alternating chapters between the organized and fully resourced investigation in Edinburgh and the rather country-bumpkin style one in the Highlands. The contrasting styles of city vs. country cop are on display, with Rebus straddling both.

Overall, this is an engrossing and compelling read which is impossible to put down. Ian Rankin, in my opinion, is the master of this genre, the quality remains high throughout this long series and I can’t wait to read what happens next! Long live Rebus! Since Rebus retired I like the character Siobhan Clarke less and less. She has become a right little careerist and climber. I never liked Malcolm Fox from the time he was introduced in The Complaints, and like him less here. A teetotal prig swot, is what he is. Finally, Rebus's daughter is just a boring whiner.A Song for the Dark Times was an excellent read. Rebus is really showing his age and poor health now but he is as determined to stir things up as he ever was. This time his interest is doubled because the missing man is his daughter's husband and, although she is as rude to him as she ever was, he is desperate to help her. And they got my fingerprints. And all the time it was happening, I was thinking: this is what my Dad used to do; this is how he spent his working life. No emotion, no warmth, just a job to be got on with.'”