The book that began Ian Rankin''s phenomenal career. From the No.1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES ''The themes that would come to dominate the Rebus books are already here ... the blurred boundaries between good and evil ; the pull of superstition and myth; the difficulties in escaping and resolving one''s past ; the emotional complexities of the male of the species; and, not least, a good mystery '' TIME OUT Mary Miller had always been an outcast. Burnt in a chemical mix as a young girl, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community. Now, years later, she is a single mother, caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Her son, Sandy, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn''t easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood.
