Rather be the devil (2016) by Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin has spent nearly three decades in the company of Rebus. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian , Cathi Unsworth, Wednesday 2 November 2016

 

 

A recent editorial in the Oldie bemoaned the fact that this book heralds a turning point for John Rebus that Philip Marlowe would never have countenanced – his giving up smoking. The full horror is made explicit in the painful opening chapter when Rebus, seven days off the fags and screaming inside for one last, lingering smooch with his smoky siren, receives instead a specimen jar containing a diseased lung from his pathologist girlfriend Deborah Quant. She is unaware of the results he is waiting on after an x-ray that he refers to, with typical morbid wit, as Hank Marvin. Shadows and time are the big themes that weave through this novel.

                                   

                           

Still wrestling with the notion of retirement, Rebus attempts to distract himself by taking Quant for a meal at the Caledonian Hotel – the location of an unsolved murder. Here, in 1978, Maria Turquand was strangled as she awaited a liaison with a faithless lover. At the same time, local rock star Bruce Collier was visiting the hotel to play a gig with his band, Blacksmith. Collier’s return to Edinburgh – and his residence close to the scene of the crime – has spurred Rebus’s choice of venue, and he borrows the cold case file from his former workmate, DI Siobhan Clarke. She in turn needs advice on another matter of historical weight: gangland upstart Darryl Christie has been beaten unconscious on his doorstep and it’s whispered on the street that “Big Ger” Cafferty is behind it.
Christie has been under observation by HMRC, which is how DI Malcolm Fox, newly transferred to the Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh, finds himself also back in Edinburgh, gatecrashing Clarke’s case. The three former colleagues form an uneasy alliance, which events rapidly strengthen. An alcoholic known for confessing to crimes he didn’t commit cops for the Christie beating and provides accurate details held back from the press. A link is discovered between Christie and Anthony Brough, scion of the elite banking family for whom Turquand’s much cuckolded husband was working at the time of her death. A smug Big Ger offers Rebus cryptic clues. “Look for a Russian,” he says.

Rebus gets to kick serious bankster arse, his rage finely honed by the absence of cigarettes

Rankin has spent nearly three decades in the company of Rebus, about 10 years longer than Chandler with Marlowe, and this relationship shows no sign of medical emergency. Following novels establishing the characters of Clarke and Fox alongside Rebus and his archenemy, Big Ger, the more recent cast members now feel as credible as Rebus himself and the sparks of their interaction create an atmosphere as rich as the plot, boding well for the future.

Rankin neatly compares the rock star excesses of the 70s to the outrages of today’s financial larcenists, while Rebus gets to kick serious bankster arse, his rage finely honed by the absence of cigarettes. Though it moves at pace, what makes this tale so deeply satisfying is that its protagonists have had time and space to develop. Rebus’s input serves to highlight the benefits of  age, experience and keeping a sense of community.
So will the author really allow “Hank Marvin” to bring down a creation at the height of his powers? That would be telling. Though, he still has another decade to go to match Conan Doyle and Holmes …

Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013) by Ian Rankin

Ya gotta love Rebus!

Review by Alison Flood, 'The Observer', Nov 16, 2013

Ian Rankin has found a way to bring his long-running detective John Rebus out of retirement, but the former detective inspector has been forced to take a demotion to return to the force, and it's galling him. "Same rank as 1987?" a witness asks the newly minted detective sergeant, maliciously. "The question sliced into Rebus like a scalpel.

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Saints of the Shadow Bible, his 20th outing, sees Rebus reporting to his former protege, Siobhan Clarke, as the pair investigate a suspicious car crash. He's also sparring with Malcolm Fox from the police complaints department over an old murder. Thirty years ago, Billy Saunders was tried for beating a man to death. The case collapsed because of the actions of Rebus's former colleagues – Saunders was a snitch, and Fox believes that despite his guilt, Summerhall CID decided he was more use on the street than in prison.

Now, following changes to the double jeopardy law, Scotland's solicitor general wants the case reopened, and the former Summerhall police officers – a close-knit gang who called themselves the Saints, and who drew a young Rebus into their number – are up for investigation.

Without excusing – or, quite, implicating – Rebus, Rankin shows just how dirty the police force was at Summerhall, how results were all that mattered, not methods. "You ever see that programme Life on Mars? It felt like a documentary," says Rebus, who in any case would need "a space the size of Ikea" to store all his own skeletons, it is pointed out sourly. His former boss, Stefan Gilmour, took the fall for the contaminated evidence and the dodgy interviews that resulted in Saunders walking free; Gilmour is now a millionaire and a big player for the "no" campaign, against Scottish independence. He and the Saints don't take kindly to being questioned, and expect Rebus to smooth the issue over for them. Taken into Fox's confidence, Rebus isn't sure which side to play for, especially when – just like 30 years ago – key evidence starts to disappear.

Rebus, says Clarke, ruefully, to Fox, is "like one of those chess wizards, the ones who play a dozen boards at the same time". So, it feels sometimes, is Rankin, as he weaves his dual plots into an ever more tangled maze, and then smoothly, oh so satisfactorily, irons them out again. Saints of the Shadow Bible is a clever, subtle read, but most of all, it's a genuine pleasure to see Rebus back in the CID. ("I'm from the 80s… I'm not the newfangled touchy feely model," he tells a suspect, irresistibly. "Now get out of my fucking car!") It's obvious Rankin feels the same way, relishing putting his old companion up against Fox and seeing the relationship develop, having a whale of a time finding out how he'll cope with demotion, investigation, authority and – of course – crime.

"Form-filling and protocols and budget meetings were not Rebus's thing – never had been and never would be. His knowledge of the internet was rudimentary and his people skills were woeful… Because he was a breed of cop that wasn't supposed to exist any more, a rare and endangered species." We know whose side Rankin is on, and we're right there behind him. A promotion for DS Rebus, please.

Standing in another man's grave (2012) by Ian Rankin

John Rebus returns to investigate the disappearances of three women from the same road over ten years. For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere.

Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus.

Rebus has never shied away from lost causes - one of the many ways he managed to antagonize his bosses when he was on the force. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Necessary work, but it's not exactly scratching the itch he feels to be in the heart of the action.

Two more women have gone missing from the same road where Sally Hazlitt was last seen. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, Rebus can sense a connection - but pursuing it leads him into the crosshairs of adversaries both old and new.

Rebus may have missed the thrill of the hunt, but he's up against a powerful enemy who's got even less to lose.



Thanks to Goodreads for review June 20, 2014.

The Flood (1986) by Ian Rankin