Midnight and Blue is the 25th installment in the Inspector Rebus series written by Ian Rankin, with a subtitle on the cover Inside, There is Nowhere to Hide.

The novel has a "Before" section followed by 27 chapters divided into Day One to Day Seven and then an "Afterwards" section.

Midnight and Blue opens with Rebus in prison; HMP Edinburgh, where he has been for six months. Originally in the Seperation and Reintegration Unit (SRU) like both ex-cops and those prisoners who are in danger themselves (eg kiddie-fiddlers) or a danger to others. He is moved after three months to Trinity Hall which has a mixture of those awaiting trial and those convicted. He has a single cell, and is under the protection of Darryl Christie, who thanks him for getting rid of Big Ger Cafferty.

He tells Darryl he was pretty average at school and bunked off a lot, but has tried to make up for it since. He works in the library. He used to start reading a number of books, but he did not finish many of them. The library is small but well-stocked with both books and DVDs. Each cell has a TV set with a built-in DVD player (which is an essential part of the plot).

He is visited by his daughter Samantha but not her daughter Carrie as he does not want Carrie to see him in prison. DI Siobhan Clarke looks after Samantha and Carrie and his dog Brillo; Carrie becomes very attached to Brillo.

At the end of “A Heart full of Headstones” he was on trial. He was convicted of the attempted murder of Big Ger Cafferty, though he said that he only wanted to scare Big Ger by putting a cushion over his face. So he is given the mandatory life sentence; and he is a “lifer” like Darryl Christie; who is running Edinburgh crime from inside, having taken over from “Big Ger”.

Rebus is pushing 70. At the end his lawyers tell him they have very good news for him. They have been appealing his case, but he frequently complains about the delay.

In his 2024 End-of-year roundup 2024 he said he started work on Midnight and Blue towards the end of 2023, anf finished it in the first four or five months of 2004.^[1]

In Acknowledgements at the end of the novel he says that it is a work of fiction and the prison in it should not be confused with the real prison in Edinburgh. He also said that he is grateful to staff and inmates of the real prison that the spoke to, and he aimed to show that prisons are places where compassion and hope can be manifested.

A review of Midnight and Blue by Stuart klelly in The Scotsman of 5 October 2024 says that there are two crimes under investigation in the novel (three, if the missing then fond teenager found by Shiv Clarke is included) but that readers wanting to solve them need to be alert. The author manages to fulil expectations withoutsuccumbing o th formlaicAnd that the devil's in the details Janet Christie talked to the author in the Oxford Bar that Rebus used to haunt.^[2]

A review of Midnight and Blue by the Guardian Bookshop says it is a taut, claustrophobic thriller that puts a Golden Age twist on a modern-day tale. The perfect book to keep Rebus fans clanging their tin cups.^[3]

Category:2024 British novels Category:Inspector Rebus novels Category:Novels set in Edinburgh Category:Orion Books books