Even Dogs in the Wild
First edition
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| Author | Ian Rankin |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Orion |
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Publication date
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5 November 2015 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 60794519 |
| Preceded by | Saints of the Shadow Bible |
| Followed by | Rather Be the Devil |
Even Dogs in the Wild is the twentieth instalment in the bestselling Inspector Rebus series of crime novels, published in 2015. The novel takes its name from the song of the same name by the Scottish band The Associates from their album The Affectionate Punch.
A former Scottish senior prosecutor has been found dead. Siobhan Clarke and a retired John Rebus are called on to investigate the prosecutor's death. Meanwhile Malcolm Fox is drafted into a surveillance team monitoring a group of Glaswegian gangsters who look set to move on Edinburgh.
There are some glaring errors about firearms but then the writer is from Scotland and firearms are few and far between. Rebus glances at a bullet hole in a wall and identifies the calibre of the hole as 9 mm (semi auto). In inches this is 0.355 actual. A .38 Webley would be 0.359 actual. It is unlikely that human vision could distinguish a 0.004" difference. Rather than a modern pistol, it could very well have been a war relic, a Webley and Scott revolver. Since the pistol was a 9mm, there should have been a spent case ejected at the scene which could have accurately indicated the make of the pistol. Further spent cases could be linked by indentation from the firing pin, marks of the ejector and extractors and scratches from the chamber. In police forensic work, the spent case is very important but has been ignored to make a weak point. This case should have been solved very early. Later, and this is a spoiler, someone fires a bullet into another's head then digs it out to prevent identification of the pistol. Did the shooter carry a bone saw, drill, knives, probes, forceps and towels to soak up the blood?
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