From Publishers Weekly
The Edinburgh of Insp. John Rebus has more than its share of violent crimes involving drugs and gangs, but there's always another layer of institutional vice and corruption. As Rebus says, "[W]e spend most of our time chasing something called 'the underworld,' but it's the overworld we should really be keeping an eye on." In Edgar-winner Rankin's 15th novel to feature the moody, dogged detective (after 2004's A Question of Blood), a Kurdish refugee's death in a dreary housing estate leads Rebus into a labyrinthine plot involving a modern-day version of the slave trade. As has been the trend in recent Rebus novels, colleague Siobhan Clarke assumes a more central role, this time investigating the disappearance of the sister of a rape victim who later committed suicide. These mysteries begin to intertwine when Rebus and Clarke are called to a pub on Fleshmarket Close where two skeletons have been exhumed. As always, Rankin is deft with characterization and wit, but here he juggles too many narrative balls. The story lines are slow to gestate, and their complexity undermines the book's momentum. Still, Rebus remains one of the more compelling characters in crime fiction—and Rebus's Edinburgh one of the more compelling settings. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
In Fleshmarket Alley (after 2004’s A Question of Blood, ***1/2 May/June 2004, and the Edgar Award-winning Resurrection Men), Rankin deals with horrific subjects: illegal immigration, racism, political asylum, bureaucracy, detention housing, and a networked criminal underworld. Described as "the Dickens of Edinburgh," Rankin explores the city’s fleshmarket—the trade in humans and plight of asylum seekers. His expertly plotted crimes come together as usual, and their confluence provides some of the book’s memorable moments. A great ear for dialogue and a deep look into the psychology of everyone from cops to murderers illuminate Edinburgh society. Even some formulaic elements barely dampened critical response to Rebus’s latest adventure.Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Edinburgh copper John Rebus has spent his life mucking about among the city's lowlifes, so much so that he often feels more kinship with the crooks he chases than he does with the new generation of cookie-cutter organization men and women who inhabit the more respectable tiers of Scottish society. His hard-won assumptions about the world are transformed, however, by his latest case, forcing Rebus, the hardest of hardened cynics, to exclaim in horror, "What in Christ's name is happening here?" It starts with the murder of an "asylum-seeker"--an illegal immigrant hoping to be granted political asylum but forced to live in a virtual prison while the lumbering Scottish bureaucracy determines his fate. As Rebus begins to dig into the murder, he is confronted by the new face of racism, twenty-first-century style: a government, unwilling to deal with the immigration problem, outsourcing "detention housing" to American prison-for-profit companies; a citizenry determined "to alienate what they cannot understand"; and a criminal underworld quick to capitalize on opportunity by entering the booming business of "people smuggling." All of these forces come together in an Edinburgh public-housing project, where racial tensions are at the breaking point, and where the people-smuggling industry thrives. Rankin, who has spent years developing Rebus' hard-bitten character, now brilliantly portrays the man forced to confront his own sensitivity. This is a superb crime novel, a pivotal entry in a uniformly fascinating series, and a remarkably perceptive analysis of the contemporary immigration dilemma at its most achingly human level. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
Inspector John Rebus has confronted Edinburgh’s most hardened criminals, its bloodiest crime scenes, and its most dangerous backstreets – but nothing could have prepared him for what he finds on Fleshmarket Alley.

In the city’s red-light district, men live out their sordid fantasies, and women with no other choice sell their bodies to make a buck. It’s a neighborhood of lost inhibitions, forgotten scruples, and hopeless dreams. In its seediest clubs, refugees seeking asylum are subjected to the whims of the most ruthless characters in the crime world – men Rebus knows all too well.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"On a notorious street where propriety and decadence clash, in the basement of a newly renovated bar, the bones of a woman and child are discovered beneath a cement floor. It's an unusually gruesome find, even for Fleshmarket Alley. When Inspector John Rebus is called to investigate, every fact he finds unleashes a host of new questions. Are the bones those of a mother and child? Are they actual human remains or fakes? Were they planted there - and if so, why?" "It could be nothing more than a ruthless and enterprising pub owner looking to create a local legend that will help lure trade. Or it could be something far worse - something as grisly as the death of a recent immigrant found brutally murdered at a local housing project, or the murder of Donald Cruikshank, a recently paroled rapist whose body is found just as a young woman goes missing. The missing girl is a friend of Inspector rebus's colleague Detective Siobhan Clarke, and Siobhan is shocked to find herself in the same intricate web of murderers as Rebus - all somehow tied to that pile of bones under Fleshmarket Alley." In a race to stop the killings before more bodies turn up - even as the possibility of romantic entanglements distracts and entices them - rebus and Siobhan plumb the darkest corners of their beloved city and confront the lawless, conscienceless men who dwell there.

FROM THE CRITICS

Janet Maslin - The New York Times

… with the yen for overcomplication that also has him frequently citing obscure Scottish rock bands, Mr. Rankin throws in the imminent release from prison of a notorious rapist and the discovery of skeletons in the alley of the title. Exhuming those bones leads Rebus and the reader into intricate connections among the various plot threads. But as is often the case with Mr. Rankin's books, the story is secondary to the pleasure of Rebus's company. Even though he has lately discovered text messaging ("fancy a drink i am in the ox," he writes from the Oxford Bar, one of his haunts), he remains a gruff, attractive throwback to gumshoes gone by.

Publishers Weekly

The Edinburgh of Insp. John Rebus has more than its share of violent crimes involving drugs and gangs, but there's always another layer of institutional vice and corruption. As Rebus says, "[W]e spend most of our time chasing something called `the underworld,' but it's the overworld we should really be keeping an eye on." In Edgar-winner Rankin's 15th novel to feature the moody, dogged detective (after 2004's A Question of Blood), a Kurdish refugee's death in a dreary housing estate leads Rebus into a labyrinthine plot involving a modern-day version of the slave trade. As has been the trend in recent Rebus novels, colleague Siobhan Clarke assumes a more central role, this time investigating the disappearance of the sister of a rape victim who later committed suicide. These mysteries begin to intertwine when Rebus and Clarke are called to a pub on Fleshmarket Close where two skeletons have been exhumed. As always, Rankin is deft with characterization and wit, but here he juggles too many narrative balls. The story lines are slow to gestate, and their complexity undermines the book's momentum. Still, Rebus remains one of the more compelling characters in crime fiction-and Rebus's Edinburgh one of the more compelling settings. Agent, Dominick Abel. (Feb. 2) Forecast: A seven-city author tour should help this internationally bestselling author break out in the U.S. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

After taking a detour with a thriller featuring a female assassin (Witch Hunt), the Edgar Award-winning Rankin returns to the gritty police procedurals that made his name. When the body of a Kurdish refugee is found in Knoxland, a housing estate in one of Edinburgh's poorer neighborhoods, Inspector John Rebus finds himself helping the investigation. Rebus and his sometime-partner DS Siobhan Clark have recently been relocated to Gayfield Station after their old station, St. Leonard's, was closed, but both officers end up working murder cases outside their new jurisdiction. In a strange coincidence, these two separate crimes are found to be connected to two skeletons discovered in a pub in their new precinct. In this hard-boiled crime novel, Rankin deftly explores Scottish attitudes towards refugees in Edinburgh today, and readers, like Rebus, may find their opinions changing as they learn more about the circumstances under which these desperate people live. Rankin's popular series remains as fresh and satisfying as ever, and this latest installment will leave fans wondering what the future holds for Rebus as he nears retirement. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/15/04.]-Lisa O'Hara, Univ. of Manitoba Libs., Winnipeg Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews