Detective Rebus found himself embroiled in a disturbing case: a string of murders, each marked by the killer’s unsettling habit of leaving peculiar, deliberate clues beside the brutally mutilated remains of his victims.

In what appeared to be a racially motivated assault, a Kurdish man seeking asylum was found murdered on an infamous Edinburgh estate. Yet, Detective Rebus sensed complexities beneath the surface. Simultaneously, a local Member of Parliament…