Got this from a UK bookmoocher.

I quite enjoyed this one. It's only the second Rankin book I've come to; and not part of an ongoing detective series, this is a one off crime thrillery type book. Set in Edinburgh, which makes it the more fun for me as I used to live there, so I can imagine this action taking place in familiar streets and buildings. It's about an art heist that technically goes very well at first, but ultimately how crime and greed doesn't pay. It makes you wonder about the nature of art today as well - crazy in a sense that there's so much art locked away in museum's vaults and warehouses as they don't have the space to display it; likewise that a lot of it is bought as investment, to be locked in a safe or on the wall of some private institution, like it's gold bullion. And also, with these fakes they had done up that were at first glance as good as the real thing - in a way does it matter if its the original if the copy is just as good?
Rich, bored Mike Mackenzie; investment banker Allan Cruikshank; and art lover Professor Gissing are chums. Gissing mentions that he's been toying with the idea of robbing a few paintings from the National Gallery's warehouse - paintings that would never be missed as they'd be replaced with fakes - and this idea turns into a plan. Mike then gets old school "chum" (well, they were in the same year) Chib Calloway - now Edinburgh gangster - involved and the scheme comes off. But then people get greedy and start blackmailing and threatening, and they find the police are on their trail. And because professional gangsters are involved, things turn nasty.
You've got to wonder about Gissing at the end as well; on the run with his fake name, living abroad surrounding by his original paintings. But knowing that he can never go back to Scotland, never contact any family or friends... were the paintings really worth that much?

Taking this one to the York bookcrossers' March meet up.