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EVEN DOGS IN THE WILD By Ian Rankin Orion, 476 pages, $28.99
As his legions of fans are aware, John Rebus retired from the Edinburgh cops in Exit Music (2007), but was lured back from the sidelines to help with a tricky case in Standing in Another Man’s Grave (2012), and hasn’t been far from the action ever since.
He returns once again in Even Dogs in the Wild.
Though billed as Ian Rankin’s 20th John Rebus book, it’s far from exclusively a Rebus vehicle.
Rankin takes a gang’s-all-here approach in the plotting, spreading his intricate narrative among a clutch of familiar parties from Edinburgh’s cop community plus a handful from the criminal side.
At a couple of junctures in the book, the story threatens to jump the rails, but by the time Rebus finally seizes control of events, the plot rolls to a climax that should satisfy even the pickiest reader.
THE MULBERRY BUSH By Charles McCarry Mysterious Press, 320 pages, $29
What is an accomplished American spy novelist to do when he runs out of foreign powers to write about?
In Charles McCarry’s case, he takes as his central character a resourceful American spy who plots to take down his own country’s espionage apparatus.
This is an act of revenge on the spy’s part, getting even for the apparatus’s cruel treatment of the spy’s father, and it spins readers through a long tour of the Middle East, Russia, Argentina and wherever else danger lurks for a good guy with bad intentions.
As ever in McCarry novels, the story is expert and convincing even if it occasionally lumps spies and their enemies in the same confused jumble.
THE SCREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY By Jakob Melander Spiderline, 408 pages, $19.95
In this pell-mell Danish novel, someone murders Copenhagen’s mayor. The mayor’s mother happens to be the federal minister of finance and the brains behind the prime minister. So the book is all about Danish politics? Not quite.
In the unrelievedly violent action, everything turns on a young transgender woman’s desperation to escape her male body. All of us readers should just be grateful that the dedicated and relentless detective Lars Winkler is on hand to steer events toward clarity and resolution.
THE BODY SNATCHER By Patricia Melo Bitter Lemon, 189 pages, $28.50
The central narrator and principal law-breaker in Brazilian crime novelist Patricia Melo’s clever new book is none too bright; believable, even likeable, but given to flashes of stupidity.
Out fishing one day, he comes across a small plane crashed in the wilderness. He swipes the rich stash of cocaine on board, leaves the plane and its dead pilot and makes his getaway, planning to deal the cocaine.
But then he commits goofs that only a nitwit could allow. Will he survive these stumbles? That question is what gives the book much of its considerable entertainment value, especially when the stunning answers to the question begin to arrive.