Talking Location With … Kat Gordon: ICELAND
Murder thriller set in an EDINBURGH prison
27th February 2026
Midnight and Blue by Ian Rankin, murder thriller set in an Edinburgh prison.
Midnight and Blue is the 26th book in Ian Rankin’s immensely successful John Rebus series. It is every bit as good as any of the others… John is / was an Edinburgh police detective and the books, a year between each, trace his career through the force. His character develops and changes as he matures. He is a very different man at the end to the one who started on the journey.
In Midnight and Blue he is retired and is in prison for being over enthusiastic in allegedly bringing about the death of a wanted man by attacking him – a claim he denies as he believes the victim died of a heart attack after any violence was over. While he is appealing the verdict he is incarcerated, a position he is not in any way comfortable with or relaxed about. There is a murder in the prison. A seemingly inconsequential ‘breaker and enterer’ is stabbed to death in his cell. Rebus cannot resist getting involved in the subsequent investigation. He works with some old contacts in the police, but his position is in no way secure as he begins his enquiries. While in prison he is under the ‘protection’ of a crime boss in a close by cell (who he helped in the past) but even that cannot guarantee his safety as he starts to probe. Both prisoners and prison staff are under suspicion, and both resent his presence – he is half on the inside and half on the outside because of his police connections.
At the same time the police are also investigating the disappearance of a 14 year old girl. With crime family connections across the two, both investigations involve many of the same police officers manoeuvring for glory and promotion. Eventually both crimes are solved – with considerable input from Rebus.
What I especially enjoyed in the book was the way Ian Rankin describes both the relationships inside the prison (the hierarchy of inmates, the cooperation – up to a point – with the prison officers to make everything work on a day by day basis) and also the sometimes difficult relationships between various branches of the police force and this serving in them. I know very little about either, but the story appears to have an authenticity about it. Indeed, Ian received cooperation from the police and spent time meeting prisoners and staff as he constructed the book.
An excellent read.
Tony for the TripFiction team
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