Let it Bleed by Ian Rankin

Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another classic from the master storyteller. Keeps one engrossed from the first page to the last page. Intrigues one with the idiosyncrasies of John Rebus.

The daughter of the Lord Provost of Scotland disappears mysteriously.

Two teenagers chased by the police, (Rebus is one of them) for plausible kidnapping of the girl in question, commit suicide by jumping of a bridge onto a frigate that is passing by below the bridge. Rebus find a business proposal under the bed of one teenager along with paraphernalia associated with drug usage.

An ex-con who is released from the jail goes and shoots himself with a sawed of shotgun in front of a Scottish Councillor. Rebus visits the residence of the Councillor and finds him shredding some documents with help from his wife.

These incidences provoke Rebus to start a private investigation without the blessings of his bosses. He is ordered to take an holiday by his seniors without being directly told to not probe further into these incidents.

Rebus is unable to keep quite and continues with his digging into the incidents. It leads him huge financial frauds that have been committed by the people placed high in the various social organizations of Scotland.

How he goes about linking the events in his inimical way rubbing all the right people the wrong way, jeopardizing his own career and those of others around him is worth the read.

Not sure what the intention of the author was in naming the book "Let it Bleed". At a trivial level Rebus has his dentist drill a hole to let the abscess in his mouth bleed.

A more serious interpretation could refer to the attitude of people high up in the Scottish social organizations who are ready to bleed the organizations under the false pretext of improving employment in Scotland while lining their own profits that accrue via these companies.

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