LET IT BLEED

The John Rebus mysteries are the perfect antidote for those who refuse to see Scotland as anything more than rolling brogues, luxuriously green hills, and men in quaint tartan skirts. The world of Edinburgh is altogether different, as menacing and unforgiving as the toughest streets of any American city. Inspector Rebus himself is a singular figure in the mystery genre, a man with little more than hard edges and obsessions, who is very hard to like. About the cases he pursues, he is single-minded to a fault, damn the consequences for anyone. Here the deaths of three men at the lowest echelons of Scottish life lead him to financial misdoings at the very highest. Samuel Gillies does a marvelous job of delivering an American audience to this exotic location without ever sentimentalizing it. M.O. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: APR/MAY 02]