The Hanging Garden (novel)

infobox Book |
name = The Hanging Garden
orig title =
translator =


author = Ian Rankin
cover_artist =
country = Scotland
language = English
series =
genre = Detective fiction
publisher = Orion
release_date = 1998
media_type = Print
pages = 448 pages
isbn = ISBN 0-7528-7726-7
preceded_by = Black and Blue
followed_by = Dead Souls

"The Hanging Garden" is a 1998 crime novel by Ian Rankin. It is the ninth of the Inspector Rebus novels. It was the second episode in the Rebus television series starring John Hannah, airing in 2001.

Plot summary

Detective Inspector John Rebus is investigating a suspected war criminal. Rebus helps a traumatised Bosnian prostitute and tries to intercede in a territory war between upstart gangster Tommy Telford and 'Big Ger' Cafferty's established gang. Telford is known to have close links with Newcastle gangster Mr Pink Eyes - a Chechen people-smuggler.

Rebus' daughter Sammie is knocked down in what looks like a deliberate hit-and-run. A Japanese gangster is killed by someone trying to frame Rebus, using his Saab car.

There are major differences between the novel and the TV adaptation - these include the omission of a plot element from the novel in which Rebus recalls events during his Army service in Northern Ireland and wonders whether under slightly different circumstances he himself might have become a war criminal, and the omission of a storyline involving a suspected Nazi war crimnal.

The title refers to The Cure's song "The Hanging Garden".