Have you ever noticed that no matter how liberal you think you are, or radical you want to be, when you read a really good mystery story featuring police officers as the central characters you quickly sympathise with them and their lot? Then again, the characters who become our favourites do so because they are cops almost in spite of the "cop" mentality.

They don't play by the rules, have little or no use for authority, and can usually be counted on to have some interesting character flaw. Of course, also working in their favour is the fact that they generally ply their trade in some far-off exotic locale like Edinburgh, Scotland.

The streets of this august city are home to Detective Inspector (DI) John Rebus, Criminal Investigation Division (CID). Scottish mystery writer Ian Rankin has put him in these particular mean streets for 16 novels, starting back in 1982 with Knots & Crosses. I haven't read all the previous novels, but on every occasion that I've checked, Rebus has been just as intriguing as he was the first time.

The Naming Of The Dead, newly published by Orion Books, is once again set in Edinburgh and its surroundings, and Rebus is up to his neck in it as usual. But this time the stakes are raised, just ever so slightly, by the presence of a few hundred thousand demonstrators who have come to honour Bob Geldof's request to help eradicate poverty; the leaders of the G8 countries; and the variety of special police, hangers-on, and movers and shakers who are as much the camp-followers of these conferences as the protesters.

The week of July 5-9, 2005 promises to be as tiresome as the annual August Theatre and Fringe festival combined, as far as John Rebus is concerned, and he is thankful that his reputation for lacking tact and diplomacy is keeping him off centre-stage. It's therefore unfortunate that a routine murder investigation that looked like it had gone cold all of a sudden tossed up a clue that thrust him right in the thick of things.

Just a short helicopter's flight from Gleneagles, where all the G8 affiliates will be converging, a piece of cloth from the victim's clothing has turned up, along with what looks like samples of other victims' clothing. Instead of one victim, Rebus and Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke are now looking at the handiwork of a potential serial killer.

Not even police are allowed to be that close to Gleneagles right about now without someone coming sniffing around. The dog this time is a Special Branch operative up from London to coordinate security for the Conference and he immediately causes Rebus' hackles to rise. After a little barking and growling they each return to their own territory.

Rebus still might have been all right if he hadn't developed an unhealthy interest in why a Member of Parliament on hand for the G8 Conference decided to dive off the parapet of Edinburgh Castle during a meeting with a variety of those aforementioned movers and shakers. As it happens, the same Special Branch officer who had warned him away from Gleneagles has turned up again.

As Rebus and Clarke wade their way through the usual quagmire of the Edinburgh underworld, turning up some old friends and new enemies, the city is seething around them with protests and demonstrations. When Siobhan's mother — her parents came for the march — is clubbed and injured seriously during one of the demonstrations, Siobhan becomes obsessed with finding the culprit.