Trou­ble­mak­ing cops–the Res­ur­rec­tion Men–from all over Scotland have been sent to the Police Training College to make them into team players. DI John Rebus is one of them, though his real job is to get the dirt on three bent cops. The senior officers who sent Rebus in seem to mistrust him too, since the Res­ur­rec­tion Men have reopened an old case where Rebus’s behavior was ques­tion­able.

Back in Edinburgh, DS Siobhan Clarke is in­ves­ti­gat­ing the murder of an art dealer, where Rebus’s old nemesis, the crime boss Big Ger Cafferty figures promi­nent­ly. This seems to be the first book where Clarke comes in to her own as a character. Rebus and Clarke traffic in gray areas and moral ambiguity. The world they must work in is neither clean nor simple, and their actions cannot always bear close scrutiny.

As in other Rebus books, the two in­ves­ti­ga­tions end up being linked far too neatly for my liking.