Clues have been deliberately left at Clootie Well (duplicated from the Black Isle to Auchterarder for the purposes of the plot), a place where items of clothing are traditionally left for luck.
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The title refers to: the ceremony Clarke's ageing left-wing parents attend, where the names of a sampling of the dead from the Iraq War are read out; the list of victims created by Rebus and Clarke as they try to unravel the crime; and also to John Rebus' evocation of grief in naming the many of his own friends and family who have died in the course of his life.
Grateful Dead | The Walking Dead | Dead Kennedys | The Walking Dead (TV series) | Dawn of the Dead | Dead Sea | Night of the Living Dead | Dead Can Dance | Dead Sea Scrolls | Dead Prez | Shaun of the Dead | Day of the Dead | Dead Like Me | The Dead Zone (TV series) | The Dead Zone | The Dead Boys | Dead of Night | The Evil Dead | Spanish naming customs | James Joyce's The Dead | Dead Silence | Dead End Kids | The Walking Dead (comic book) | The Queen Is Dead | The Dead Milkmen | naming rights | Dead Poets Society | Red Dead Revolver | Play Dead | Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest |
Tom Cotcher (A Question of Blood, Fleshmarket Close, The Naming of the Dead)