''Even Dogs in the Wild'' is the twentieth instalment in the bestselling

Inspector Rebus The ''Inspector Rebus'' books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Sir Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh. They are considered an important contrib ...

series of

crime novel Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

s, published in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

. The novel takes its name from the song of the same name by the Scottish band The Associates from their album ''

The Affectionate Punch ''The Affectionate Punch'' is the debut studio album by Scottish post-punk and new wave band The Associates. It was released on 1 August 1980 on the Fiction label. The song title "Even Dogs in the Wild" became the title of a novel by Scottish ...

''.

Plot summary

A former Scottish senior prosecutor has been found dead, with a threatening note in his pocket.

Siobhan Clarke This is a list of characters from the ''Inspector Rebus'' series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin. They are all fictional characters that have appeared in more than one novel in the series. A number of the characters appe ...

is in charge of the high-profile case. Then the semi-retired gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty receives a similar note and someone shoots at him.

John Rebus Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Sir Ian Rankin, ten of which have so far been televised as ''Rebus''. The novels are mostly set in and around Edinburgh. ...

has retired (for the second time), but he is asked to join in the investigation. Meanwhile Malcolm Fox is drafted into a surveillance team monitoring a group of

Glaswegian The Glasgow dialect, popularly known as the Glasgow patter or Glaswegian, varies from Scottish English at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum to the local dialect of West Central Scots at the other. Therefore, the speech of many Glaswegia ...

gangsters who look set to move on

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

. Cafferty, the young Edinburgh gangster Darryl Christie, and the Glasgow gang are all looking over their shoulders at each other and at the police. Cafferty is the one who recognizes the history behind the vendetta against him and a few other survivors of a disastrous event thirty years earlier.

References

2015 British novels Inspector Rebus novels Orion Books books {{2010s-crime-novel-stub