'Big Ger' Cafferty, who is still serving his time in Barlinnie Prison, is thought to be engineering attacks on Telford, to maintain control of crime in Edinburgh, and Rebus and his colleagues must track the growing gang war.

The novel begins with a short, two-chapter Book 1 in which Rebus says good-bye to Sammy on Guy Fawkes night and, a few hours later, finds her unconscious in the hospital after a hit-and-run.

Book 3, which takes up the rest of the novel, returns to Rebus on November 6 and follows him as he gathers up the loose ends and provides the insights which lead to (potentially) dismantling not only Telford's but Tarawicz's gangs.

"The division or turning-point in Rankin's career came in 1997 with the publication of Black & Blue," which showed more "ambition and range" than earlier books in the series, and also broke out of the limitations of genre to become a bestseller, interweaving an unsolved historical serial killer case with a view of the Scottish oil industry.

[4] Plain suggests that the emotional intensity of The Hanging Garden could not be sustained in the following novel, Dead Souls, since the continued "twisting of the knife" leads to a bleakness that becomes "static."

Plain also points out that the Professor Lintz character, a respected citizen who probably supervised a Nazi massacre, is another example of the Jekyll and Hyde theme which Rankin had pursued through his first few Rebus novels.