Mortal Causes
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| Author | Ian Rankin |
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| Country | Scotland |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Detective fiction |
| Publisher | Orion |
| Released | 1994 |
| Media Type | |
| Pages | 336 pages |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7528-7720-8 |
| Preceded by | The Black Book |
| Followed by | Let it Bleed |
Mortal Causes is a 1994 novel by Ian Rankin. It is the sixth of the Inspector Rebus novels. It was the fourth episode in the Rebus television series starring John Hannah, airing in 2004.
[edit] Plot summary
Set during the Edinburgh Festival, this novel starts with a brutally executed corpse being discovered in Mary King's Close, an ancient subterranean street. The body has a tattoo identified with "Sword and Shield", a long-thought-defunct Scottish Nationalist group with links to sectarianism in Northern Ireland. The victim turns out to be the son of notorious gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty, and the plot moves towards the unthinkable prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a tourist-filled Edinburgh.
[edit] The joke
Throughout the book, Rebus keeps overhearing parts of a joke about a squid with a moustache that goes into a restaurant. According to Ian Rankin, the punch line is as follows: 'For Hans that does dishes can feel as soft as Gervase with mild, green, hairy-lipped squid'.
The punch line a reference to the long-running advertising slogan of Fairy Liquid.
| Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series |
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| Knots and Crosses | Hide and Seek | Tooth and Nail | Strip Jack | The Black Book | Mortal Causes | Let it Bleed | Black and Blue | The Hanging Garden | Dead Souls | Set in Darkness | The Falls | Resurrection Men | A Question of Blood | Fleshmarket Close | The Naming of the Dead |
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