But first Rebus must attend to the mysterious death of a man strapped to a chair and hefted from a tenement window – and before long, he finds himself in a stomach-churning ‘paraffin budgie’ on the way to a North Sea oil platform, as he follows what may be a host of spurious leads. And just to confuse things further, Rebus is forced into the unenviable position of having to call in a favour from Big Ger Cafferty, and to face some uncomfortable truths about some of his old cases. All in all, it’s not going well.

As Rebus travels around northern Scotland, at last his investigations start to bear fruit, although questions of guilt remain unclear and Rebus can only berate himself for not understanding earlier the significance of several small things.

Black & Blue won the 1997 Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger Award, and signalled the arrival of Ian Rankin at the top of the bestseller lists.

Discussion points for Black & Blue

Ian Rankin feels that Black & Blue is the book that all the previous Rebus novels had been leading to. Would you agree?

DS Brian Holmes makes a return – how innocent is he, and does Rebus believe him?

Black & Blue abounds with personal vendettas. Do they have parallels and patterns between them? How does Ian Rankin employ them in the structure of the story?

Rebus is himself being hunted by the journalists; do they make him feel guilty? Does he realise that what’s happening to him is not dissimilar to how he tracks down criminals?

DS Siobhan Clarke is now more confident, even telling jokes. In what other ways does this more mature attitude manifest itself?

For much of the story, Bible John is more effective at hunting Johnny Bible than the police are. Why is this?

How does Ian Rankin use the oil industry to examine Scotland’s industrial development? What does oil mean to Scotland, and to Black & Blue?

What does Rebus think about the idea of the ‘frontier police’ who keep order on the oil platforms?

How does Ian Rankin show Aberdeen to be a different type of city from Edinburgh?

Ian Rankin claims that because of frustrations in his own personal life, in Black & Blue he used Rebus as his personal ‘punchbag’. Is this apparent?

Considering the difficulties he has sustaining loving relationships with women, Rebus goes on to acknowledge that the problem lies somewhere within himself: ‘Rape was all about power; killing too, In Its way. And wasn’t power the ultimate male fantasy? And didn’t he sometimes dream of it too?’ How revealing are these comments?