A Song for the Dark Times - Ian Rankin

 

Rankin's latest Rebus is as good as ever.  Late phase Rebus, of course, means retired Rebus getting involved, one way or another, in crimes being investigated by Siobhan Clarke and Malcolm Fox.  And there's no change here.  What I would say, though, is that in A Song for the Dark Times the potentially tricky mix is done better than in some of the others.  The cases are separate but involve some of the same people.  Rebus is called up to the rural North when his estranged daughter's partner is murdered and Samantha is a prime suspect.  Meanwhile in Edinburgh Fox joins the team led by Siobhan's partner DCI Graham Sutherland, investigating the murder of wealthy Saudi student and James Bond fan, Salman Bin Mahmoud.  Fox has been seconded from MIT because Salman's father is being detained by the Saudi authorities and the Foreign Office want oversight of the case.  The connection between the two cases is that the Meiklejohn family owns the former PoW camp in which Sam's partner's body was found, and Lady Isabella Meiklejohn appears to be Salman's girlfriend.

It's very clever - beautifully written, of course - and eminently satisfying in the resolution.  Rankin on top form.

In a House of Lies - Ian Rankin

The odd dud is inevitable when you are as prolific as Ian Rankin, and this is undoubtedly one of his. It seems to be based on two celebrated podcasts about murder, the Adnan Syed case which made Serial a worldwide hit and the murder of Daniel Morgan in London in 1987. Basically we have the murder of a private detective and the key clue about how long a car was parked where it was found which hinges on the analysis of soil and grass. Note to Rankin: You're a crime writer; never assume your crime readers are less informed than you are.

The second problem is that Rankin continues to employ the detective triad which, for me at least, is no longer interesting or indeed credible: Rebus, Malcolm Fox and Siobhan Clarke. It is essentially a good idea. Now he is retired Rebus can be even more of a wild card; Clarke has to obey the rules or her long association with Rebus will hold her back; and Fox polices the police. The problem is, they all come with baggage from up to 21 previous outings, or, in Fox's case, from two novels in which he was the replacement for Rebus. This means a certain number of secondary characters have to revisited, even if there is no plotting need. If Rankin isn't at the very top of his game, this can lead to an imbalance between investigation and back story. Needless to say, in Rebus #22, Rankin isn't at the apex of his ability.

It's readable - Rankin is always readable - but the problems are overwhelming. Both the A plot and the B subplot are fundamentally unbelievable; no one kills or accepts the blame for killing for such trivial reasons. And the novel itself is about 25% too long. I hope Rankin recovers form for the next Rebus. I for one could not take another misfire, especially as recent instalments have been so good.

Rather be the Devil - Ian Rankin

This is the 2016 instalment of Rebus and continues the high standard of recent Rebus novels. Again, Rebus is shadowed by the insipid Malcolm Fox, former Professional Standards chief, now attached to the Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh. Fox is meant to be the antithesis of Rebus, the good cop who plays by the rules, but he never manages to do so and is far too dull to do anything but get in Rebus's way. This was not the case in the two standalone Fox novels, The Complaints and The Impossible Dead, both of which I greatly enjoyed, but the sooner he is ditched from the Rebus series the better. The only contrast we need with Rebus is his former oppo Siobhan Clarke, whose character continues to add richness to successive novels.


The structure here is complex. Rebus is taking his mind off his health problems by looking into an almost forty year old cold case, the murder of Maria Turquand, strangled in a city centre hotel full of bankers and pop stars and crooks. The police, meanwhile, are investigating an attack on local gangster Darryl Christie. His gangland mentor, Big Ger Cafferty, is a prime suspect and so is Anthony Brough, the missing grandson of banking buccaneer Sir Magnus Brough, who was peripherally involved in the Turquand case insofar as his deputy was married to Maria. Thus Rebus is drawn in to the inquiry.


In fact, the cold case storyline rather fizzles out. The main story, however, is full of fun. Big Ger himself plays a full and active role - Rankin is so taken with him, indeed, that this edition contains a short story 'Cafferty's Day' "exclusive to Waterstone's" (which is not as impressive as it might sound, since Waterstone's is the owner of W H Smith's and now Foyles' and is thus the only British mass market book chain). In fact the story is neither here nor there. It could have been worse - at least it ties in to the main novel.


In summary, then: a top quality police procedural, as good as anything similar in the market and a good deal better than most. Rankin remains on top form, which is saying something given that 2017 was the 30th anniversary of the first Rebus.

Even Dogs in the Wild - Ian Rankin

This is the third Rebus and Fox story. I reviewed the first, Standing in Another Man's Grave, a year or so ago and have evidently missed the second, Saints of the Shadow Bible. No matter: Rankin is always able to make his novels sufficient in themselves as well as part of a series.


Rebus is retired and Fox has left Complaints. Somebody is going around murdering people with no apparent connection - Senior Scottish lawyer and peer Lord Minton, a lottery winner up north and Big Ger Cafferty, Edinburgh's gangster emeritus. Actually, the killer takes a pot shot at Cafferty and misses. The cases are linked because each has been given warning, a note shoved their letterbox declaring I'M GOING TO KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID.


Meanwhile a gang of Glasgow thugs are in town looking for a purloined shipment of drugs. A squad of Glasgow cops follows, to which Fox is attached for want of anything better for him to do. Rebus, meanwhile, is the only person Cafferty is willing to talk to. Things develop. The link is obvious from quite early on, sadly predictable and the subject of more or less every contemporary British crime novel nowadays. But what matters here is how the story is unravelled and the strength of the characters.


Which is where the problem lies. Malcolm Fox, no matter how fond of him Rankin has become, no matter how much story he tries to load onto his shoulders, is far too dull to keep pace with Rebus. Any section with him in is instantly forgettable. Rankin is aware of this and relegates him to the gangster subplot. It is Fox who is placed in jeopardy. Unfortunately I was rather hoping it would prove fatal.


Rankin is a great crime novelist. The noir-tinged Scottish procedural is his baby and nobody does it better. But it has become slightly old fashioned. The taste now is for full noir. And he has let his characters grow old, which means their continued involvement in crime is always going to stretch credulity. By incorporating Fox he has diluted the mix. There are so many senior coppers involved here that I lost track. I enjoyed it, but was not blown away. Still, it won't stop me reading the next instalment or seeking out Saints of the Shadow Bible, which, if nothing else, has a much better title.

Standing in Another Man's Grave - Ian Rankin

This, apparently, is Rebus #18 and Fox #3, which handily also reflects their respective contributions to this story. It's a great idea to bring the two police protagonists together but it doesn't really work because Fox of Complaints only serves to tell us what we already know - that Rebus, now retired and working for Cold Cases, is a bit of a maverick.

The idea of setting Rebus's return in Cold Cases, on the other hand, works well. Every professional relationship we have followed through the preceding 19 novels is now reversed - Siobhan Clarke, formerly his oppo, is now his direct superior; Ger Cafferty, notorious gangland kingpin, is now also officially retired and Rebus's occasional, awkward, drinking buddy. Otherwise, the things which defined Rebus are thankfully much the same: nothing in his life except policework; the drive always to make things harder for himself than they need to be.

Forget the Malcolm Fox stuff, which is either a failed gimmick or (as I prefer to believe) a necessary device to frame Rebus's potential return to the force; this is essentially old school Rebus. Perhaps I should amend that slightly. Standing in Another Man's Grave is Rebus after he became fully grown from around the fifth novel in the sequence, when he gradually transitioned from detective to flawed hero.

The story is a good one. Rebus is able to link a missing young woman to a series of previous disappearances which convince the inquiry team there is a serial killer on the loose. Thus Rebus is seconded to the main inquiry, reunited with Clarke, and all is business as usual. There is a good running joke about the ambitious DCI being called James Page (i.e. Jimmy Page, the Led Zeppelin legend). We have the usual conflict between traditional hands-on policing and modern micro-managed policing-by-computer. Rebus mixes with the Edinburgh underworld in all its glory.

The midpoint twist I expect we would all see coming - I certainly did for once in my reading life - and the ultimate solution is neither here nor there. Somebody had to do it, it has to be Rebus who finds him, no one of course believes Rebus and Clarke has to be equivocal. That is what we want from a Rebus novel. That is what we get. In this instance we also get Rankin at the height of his powers. It's a long novel, 350 pages, but Rankin is able to fill it with character and complexity.

Let It Bleed (Rebus 7) - Ian Rankin

The beauty of ebooks is that you can download one for under £1 in a click. You don't have time or need to speculate. If it's not up to scratch, no biggie. I bought the first Rebus when it came out in paperback, probably in the early Nineties. I still remember how disappointed I was. The plot was nothing much to write home about and the detective's name was just plain silly. I have to say I didn't think much of the early TV adaptations either - the ones starring John Hannah - though they did improve when Ken Stott took over, and Stott remains the model for the Rebus in my head.

Anyway, last week Let it Bleed was on offer and I thought what-the-hey? It's halfway through the series and sure enough Rebus has amassed sufficient character to make time spent in his company enjoyable. The new edition has exclusive extra material from Rankin which for me was best avoided. I really don't need insights into the authorial psyche unless they are incorporated into the main text.

The story itself is very much of its era, the mid-Nineties, when the UK was finally waking up to the legacy of the Thatcher free-marketeers. Entrepreneurship has corrupted every aspect of public life. The legerdemain that Rankin pulls off here is very impressive; he sends us off in pursuit of the usual suspect who turns out to be the wrong suspect. Rankin at this period was not great at the intricacies of the police system (though he is now with his Malcolm Fox series) and Let It Bleed succeeds principally because Rebus is working off the books, which gives him something to lose - his career, the only things he has to keep him from out-and-out alcoholism - if it all goes pear-shaped.

There's something else here which, for me at least, the early books lacked, and that's compassion. The alkies and the junkies and the petty criminals are all real people, the real bad guys - the upwardly mobile - perhaps slightly less so. This enables flashes of wit that really humanise Rebus's world without distracting from the seriousness of the plot.

In short, then, I enjoyed it. The name Rebus is still silly, but after all this time what can Rankin do? I can't help wondering if the Rebus/Fox mash-up Even Dogs in the Wild (2015), presumably a sort of Edinburgh version of Superman meets Batman, might offer me the perfect Rankin experience.