Book excerpt: Weary, wary, hard-drinking Detective John Rebus returns in author Ian Rankin's internationally acclaimed, award-winning series. As complex and unpredictable as the brooding mists that envelop his Edinburgh beat, Rebus is ever resourceful and determined--but this time, vulnerable and challenged as never before, with complications in his personal life, and events that shake him to the depths of his being.... A colleague's suicide. Pedophiles. A missing child. A serial killer. You never know your luck, muses Rebus. Driven by instinct and experience, he searches for connections, against official skepticism. But at night, unsoothed by whiskey, Rebus faces his ghosts--and the prospect of his daughter's possibly permanent paralysis. Soldiering through dank, desperate slums and the tony flats of the Scottish chic, Rebus uncovers a chain of crime, deceit, and hidden sins--knowing it's himself he's really trying to save.... Ian Rankin's Dead Souls is "crime writing of the highest order" (Daily Express).