Rankin Exit Music.

IT’S LATE FALL in Edinburgh and late in the career of Detective Inspector John Rebus. As he ties up loose ends before his retirement, a new case lands on Rebus’s desk: a dissident Russian poet has been murdered in what looks like a mugging gone wrong.

By no small coincidence for Rebus, an elite delegation of Russian businessmen is in town, looking to expand its interests. And in the meantime, Rebus must contend with a brutal and premeditated assault on a local gangster with whom he has a long history.

Has Rebus overstepped his bounds for the last time? Only a few days shy of the end to his long, combative career, will Rebus even make it that far?