See More From Book Club Friends

Sign up and log in to post, comment and join the conversation.

Book Club Friends is 100% Canadian 🇨🇦

Ian Rankin
A Song for the Dark Times
Book #23 of the Inspector Rebus series
See the list of Inspector Rebus books in order

A Song for the Dark Times

From the iconic Number One bestseller Ian Rankin, comes one of the must-read books of the year: A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES

‘Genius … Only great novels capture the spirit of the age. This is one of them.’
THE TIMES

‘He’s gone…’

When his daughter Samantha calls in the dead of night, John Rebus knows it’s not good news. Her husband has been missing for two days.

Rebus fears the worst – and knows from his lifetime in the police that his daughter will be the prime suspect.

He wasn’t the best father – the job always came first – but now his daughter needs him more than ever. But is he going as a father or a detective?

As he leaves at dawn to drive to the windswept coast – and a small town with big secrets – he wonders whether this might be the first time in his life where the truth is the one thing he doesn’t want to find…

PRAISE FOR A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES:

‘Magnificent … utterly unputdownable and an immersive pleasure’ MARIAN KEYES

‘This is Rankin at his best, Rebus at his best, storytelling that meets the moment and transcends all genres and expectations’ MICHAEL CONNELLY

‘An outstanding addition to one of the finest bodies of work in crime fiction’ MICK HERRON

‘Rankin remains the king of the castle’ THE TIMES

‘Typically compelling’ DAILY TELEGRAPH

‘Masterly storytelling’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘Excellent’ LIZ NUGENT

‘The best that the crime genre can offer’ FT

‘Rankin grows better with time . . . Rebus grows ever more compelling’ DAILY MAIL

* * * * *

PRAISE FOR THE ICONIC NUMBER ONE BESTSELLER:

‘Ian Rankin is a genius’
LEE CHILD

‘A master storyteller’
GUARDIAN

‘Rebus is one of British crime writing’s greatest characters: alongside Holmes, Poirot and Morse’
DAILY MAIL

‘Great fiction, full stop’
THE TIMES

‘One of Britain’s leading novelists in any genre’
NEW STATESMAN

‘Rankin is a phenomenon’
SPECTATOR

‘Worthy of Agatha Christie at her best’
SCOTSMAN

‘The king of crime fiction’
SUNDAY EXPRESS

Author: Ian Rankin
Published: 2020
Page Count: 336

This page may include affiliate links.

Purchase on:

Amazon
Amazon

Book Club Discussion Questions For A Song for the Dark Times

A Song for the Dark Times
Discuss A Song for the Dark Times With Your Book Club Friends

Do you want to take a deeper dive intoA Song for the Dark Times? Chat about themes, characters, settings, plots and let’s celebrate this book for our Book of the Month discussion!

Suggest A Song for the Dark Times

More Book Club Discussions

A Better Man
A Fatal Grace
A Great Reckoning
A Rule Against Murder
A Trick of the Light
A World of Curiosities
All the Devils Are Here
An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s
Beautiful Ugly
Bury Your Dead
Glass Houses
How the Light Gets In
How to Stand Up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future
Iron Lake (20th Anniversary Edition)
Kingdom of the Blind
On Tyranny
State of Terror
Still Life
The Beautiful Mystery
The Boyfriend
The Briar Club
The Brutal Telling
The Crash
The Cruelest Month
The Frozen River
The Grey Wolf
The Housemaid
The Life We Bury
The Long Way Home
The Madness of Crowds
The Mighty Red
The Nature of the Beast
The River We Remember
The Rose Code
The Searcher
The Thursday Murder Club
Wild Dark Shore
See All Discussions

Highly Recommended Books by Ian Rankin Book Club Friends

The Night Hawks
A Sleeping Life
See Delphi and Die
Evans to Betsy
The Black Tower
Rather be the Devil
Abattoir Blues
Injustice for All
An Impossible Impostor
High Island Blues
The Perfect Murder
In the Company of Sherlock Holmes
I Am the Only Running Footman
The Silent Wife: A Novel
The Locked Tomb Mystery and Other Stories
An Island of Suspects: A Brittany Mystery
Strangers in Time
A Serpent's Tooth: A Longmire Mystery
Another Thing to Fall
The Hollows
Kisscut
The Serpent on the Crown
The Outcast Dead
Rain Gods
The Secret of Spandau
Winter Study
Day of the Dead
Evan Blessed
The Speaker Of Mandarin
Critical Mass: A V.I. Warshawski Novel
Nightblind
The Murder Room
Grasshopper
Garment of Shadows
The Sweet Remnants of Summer
The Green Mill Murder
The Birthday Present
I Follow You
Friends are Forever
Bones Never Lie
The Brimstone Wedding
A Taste for Vengeance
Innocent Blood
Silent Voices
John Doe: A Rizzoli & Isles Short Story
Scarpetta
The American Agent
Death of a Prankster
Taking the Veil: MatchUp Collection
A Christmas Grace: A Novel
Death of a Valentine
The Mary Russell Series: Books 2-4
The Forgotten
A Casualty of War
The Scottish Prisoner
Pros and Cons: A Short Story
Everyone Dies
The Unheard
Death Row
The Book of the Dead
Absolute Proof
Tears of the Giraffe
The Glass Coffin
Seven Corpses All in a Row
A Fatal Inversion
O Jerusalem
The Temptation of Forgiveness
Return to Sender: A Longmire Mystery
The Hyde Park Headsman
Deborah's Judgment: A Deborah Knott Short Story
The Tin Roof Blowdown
Livid
The Old Success: A Richard Jury Mystery
Arcadia: A Case For Willows And Lane
Corridors of the Night: A William Monk Novel
Black and Blue
Diablo Mesa
Crime Scene: A Novel
A Duty to the Dead
Blood in Eden
Back Spin
Dark Sacred Night
Saving Emma
Bertie and the Seven Bodies
Lady in the Lake
Disappeared: A Kate Burkholder Short Mystery
The Body on the T
Fire and Ice
Perfect People
Resurrection Row
To Play the Fool
Night Prey
Terminal Freeze
Funeral in Blue: A William Monk Novel
Indemnity Only
The Clockmaker's Daughter
The Fallen
The Darkness
Prayers for the Dead
The Five Bells and Bladebone
Beginnings: A Kate Martinelli Novella
In the Presence of the Enemy
The Harvey Girl
Twilight
Dangerous Waters
Lie Down with Lions
Web of Evil
No Shred of Evidence
The Novel Habits of Happiness
Empress of the Seven Hills
A Christmas Visitor
Death at the Sign of the Rook
House of Many Shadows
Neon Prey
Not Dead Enough
A Bitter Truth
Black Notice
Hero: A Simon Serrailler Short Story
The Boy from the Woods
There Goes the Bride
Reykjavík: A Crime Story
A Birthday Lunch
Another Man's Poison
Sizzling Sixteen
A Comedy of Terrors
Trespasser
All the Colors of the Dark
Busy Body
Dissolution
The Grownup
Night Gate
Cardington Crescent
The Body by the Sea: A Brittany Mystery
Three Twisted Stories
Double Homicide
Through the Evil Days
The Moor
What the Dead Know
Abracadaver
12 Rose Street
Better to Rest
Heat Lightning
The Face in the Mirror
The Hanged Man's Song
The Last Detective
In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner
The Inmate
The Vanishing Museum on the Rue Mistral
Dance of Death
Shadow Prey
Journey to Munich
The Hanging Girl
A Killing Spring
Death in Daylesford
The Secret Hours
The Late Show
A Spoonful of Poison
Crack Down
Fear the Worst
A Christmas Gathering
Beneath the Skin
The Man with a Load of Mischief
The Crossroads
Evil Bones
The Man with the Silver Saab
A Taste of Life
The Black Book
Mrs. Pollifax and the Second Thief
A Royal Pain
Blood Ties
An Unexpected Peril
The Last Remains
Death of a Scriptwriter
Rainbow's End: A Richard Jury Mystery
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
A Spot of Folly
The Woman in the Water: A Prequel to the Charles Lenox Series
Hunter's Moon
The Maharani's Pearls: A Bess Crawford Story
Framed in Fire
Dark August
Shroud for a Nightingale
The Thunder Keeper
The Vinegar Mother
With Child
The Murders of Richard III
In League with Sherlock Holmes
Defend and Betray: A William Monk Novel
A Land More Kind Than Home
Fatal Remedies
The Kept Woman: A Will Trent Thriller
Two of the Deadliest
Gallowglass
The Prisoner
Desert Star
Trouble
When the Bough Breaks
Gone: An Alex Delaware Novel
Agatha Raisin and the Love from Hell
Dakota
A Last Goodbye
Prepared for Rage
Uniform Justice
A Letter of Mary
Left for Dead
Sacred Clowns: A Leaphorn and Chee Novel
The Man from St. Petersburg
An Old Betrayal
Verses for the Dead
This Tender Land
Angel of Vengeance
A Twist of Fortune
The Black Cabinet
Back of Beyond
The Murder Stone: A Novel of Suspense
Stone Rain
Search the Shadows
The Devil's Bed
At Risk
The Vanishing Man
Faithful Place
Potboiler
Red Eye: Patrick Kenzie vs. Harry Bosch
Boundary Waters
Snakebit: A Mike Bowditch Short Mystery
The Ritual Bath
Storm Watch
Dismissed with Prejudice
Apples Never Fall
All That Remains
Hold Tight
The Fly on the Wall
The Subtle Serpent
A Match Made for Murder
Death of a Smuggler
The Trees
Keeping Watch
Hell's Corner
What He Needed
Final Edition
Half Moon Bay: A Novel
Looking Good Dead
Girl Waits with Gun
Every Cloak Rolled in Blood
The Conditions of Unconditional Love
Leave the Grave Green
A Christmas Vanishing: A Novel
Lockdown
Hot to Trot: An Agatha Raisin Mystery
The Summer Guests
The Longmire Defense
Force of Nature
Act of Mercy
A Winter Grave
Joyland
A Killer in King's Cove
Fleshmarket Close
The Neighbor
Dream Town
Hid from Our Eyes
Fall of Giants
Hand of Evil
Dial A for Aunties
Besieged: An Outlander Novella
Heartstones
Missing and Endangered
The King's Ransom
The Magnolia Palace
The Way of All Fish
Vermilion Drift
The Modigliani Scandal
The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax
Adam and Eve and Pinch Me
The Torment of Others
Westwind
Eleven on Top
The House at Riverton
The Stone Wife
Dead Like You
House of Correction
High Five
On Her Majesty's Frightfully Secret Service
Storm Track
The Rags of Time: A DC Smith Investigation
The Mapping of Love and Death
The Minotaur: A Novel
The Ambitious City
Vicious Circle
Death of a Cad
The Wife
White Nights
Twisted Twenty-Six
A Plague of Zombies: An Outlander Novella
The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024
The Stranger Diaries
The Love Talker
Fireball
The Scam
Play with Fire
As the Pig Turns