Let It Bleed Detective John Rebus understands that murder is usually very simple. Passion and greed are the most common motives, but when the bodies begin to pile up--two suicides, one murder, and the mysterious death of an inmate in one of Scotland's largest prisons--Rebus realizes that there's nothing simple about his latest case. He discovers that beneath the killings a conspiracy is hidden, one that runs all the way to the top of the political ladder.
In the dark days and biting windstorms of an Edinburgh winter, two drop-out kids dive off the towering Forth Road Bridge. A civic office is spattered by a grisly gun-blast. Two suicides and a murder that just don't add up, unless John Rebus can crunch the numbers. Following a trail that snakes through stark alleys and sad bars, shredded files and lacerated lives, Rebus finds himself up against an airtight, murderous conglomerate on the make in every arena of power. It's leeching the life and soul out of his city and, if it can, him too...