Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin

Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin, 1994

His eyes were closed. If he opened them he knew he would see flecks of his own blood against the whitewashed wall, the wall which seemed to arch toward him. His toes were still moving against the ground, dabbling in warm blood. Whenever he tried to speak, he could feel his face cracking: dried salt tears and sweat.

It was strange, the shape your life could take. You might be loved as a child but still go bad. You might have monsters for parents but grow up pure. His life had been neither one nor the other. Or rather, it had been both, for he'd been cherished and abandoned in equal measure. He was six, and shaking hands with a large man. There should have been more affection between them, but somehow there wasn't. He was ten, and his mother was looking tired, bowed down, as she leaned over the sink washing dishes. Not knowing he was in the doorway, she paused to rest her hands on the rim of the sink. He was thirteen, and being initiated into his first gang. They took a pack of cards and skinned his knuckles with the edge of the pack. They took it in turns, all eleven of them. It hurt until he belonged.

Now there was a shuffling sound. And the gun barrel was touching the back of his neck, sending out more waves. How could something be so cold? He took a deep breath, feeling the effort in his shoulder-blades. There couldn't be more pain than he already felt. Heavy breathing close to his ear, and then the words again.

'Nemo me impune lacessit.'---- (pages 5-6)

The great thing about the recurring series character is the pleasure of an established world and cast. No one would argue that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wasn't a gifted mystery writer, but it's the beautifully structured little universe of 221b Baker Street that caught the reader's imagination. Agatha Christie could spin out a whodunit with the best of them, yet her most successful novels, most fans would agree, are the ones featuring Poirot or Miss Marple, sleuths whose habits and methods are well established. Ian Rankin's Rebus series is likewise structured, although with more complexity than Doyle's world, or Christie's. Each Rebus novel is a treat just because we get to re-enter the world of Rankin's Edinburgh and the large cast of coppers, criminals and civilians who inhabit it.

Once you feel an affinity for a particular fictional character or universe, it sometimes becomes easier to criticize the plots as not being worthy of the characters, or not measuring up to what came before. With each Harry Potter book, readers held their breath, willing J.K. Rowling to spin a story that lived up to the rest of the series (the fact that she did, every single time, is one of the many, many things I love about the Potter books). Mortal Causes is the sixth book in the Rebus series, and it has a tall order to fill, considering how much I've loved some of the past installments. Causes, like Strip Jack and The Black Book, is a bit of letdown in terms of plot, despite some great elements and a handful of truly memorable moments.

Edinburgh's yearly Festival, a citywide event that attracts thousands of tourists, is in full swing when a gruesomely tortured body is discovered in a subterranean street. John Rebus is one of the first on the scene and the mode of execution immediately suggests paramilitary terrorists. Sectarian radicals, both Catholic and Protestant, have been waging a furious war in the UK, and the Scottish Crime Squad suspects that the victim was executed by a mysterious group of terrorists known as the Shield. Working for two separate agencies and hounded by gangsters, Rebus digs into the mystery and discovers a vast network of violent extremists with something deadly planned for this year's Festival.

While most of the Rebus novels are more classic murder-mystery narratives, Causes is set up as more of a thriller, with terrorists, spies and multiple government agencies in play. Unfortunately, the book's plot is choppy and a bit schizophrenic. Rankin packs a lot of characters and a lot of narrative into one relatively short novel, and the result is an overstuffed story with too many divergent subplots and separate threads. Rankin never totally commits to the thriller-like elements, instead vacillating between missing grenade launchers and routine police work. He can do ticking-time-bomb plots as well as anyone (Tooth and Nail is a compact, spring-loaded serial killer thriller), but Causes lacks the urgency its story requires. If the book was longer, the tangled plot threads and two dozen significant characters might have had time to breathe. Barely three hundred pages isn't enough.

Rankin's clue-dropping remains adept; he's very good at making an offhand reference to something that later proves vitally significant in a way that doesn't feel too obvious. It's his plotting that's a bit of a mess--haphazard,sprawling and overly intricate. It can be fun to follow all of his little threads, but it can also be tiring and confusing. In these last couple of books, Rankin seems to have trouble giving the reader a clear picture of the story; everything seems jumbled in pell-mell.

Luckily, those separate elements, while not combined very smoothly, are usually pretty great on their own. The addition of Big Ger Cafferty to the mix adds a nice undercurrent of danger and a sense of continuity to the novel. Cafferty's weird, half-friendly rivalry with Rebus promises to be a really interesting story for the future. I also quite liked the return to the Pilmuir ghetto, now with a new youth center that seems to be doing more bad than good. It's an interesting little slice of Edinburgh life, and I would have appreciated it if it had been more neatly folded into the plot. The major "mole" reveal is another reasonably well-handled element; it's definitely unexpected, although it might have made more of an impact if the character in question had been more developed.

Causes is the first book in the series to rely heavily on 1990s current events as a backdrop. The conflict between loyalist paramilitary groups, IRA-style terrorists and UK law enforcement is the heart of the story, as well as the longer-running contention between the Protestants and the Catholics. A lot of the finer points were somewhat lost on to me, since it's not a subject I know much about, and Rankin logically assumes that a UK audience will be familiar with the conflict. The fact that I was a bit behind on some of the context definitely made the book's plot a bit murkier for me. That's hardly a real fault (since Rankin isn't writing for international readers), and it wasn't even a major distraction. Rankin's portrait of a place torn apart by splintered forces who are fighting over ancient grievances is interesting in of itself, and Rebus's detached observations are as amusing as ever.

Rebus's home life definitely takes an odd turn in this installment. Now living with Patience in her cozy basement flat (his own taken over by the amorphous group of students from The Black Book), Rebus find his relationship with the good doctor becoming ever more distant and strained. Things become more complicated when Rebus begins a fling with an unhinged barrister, who quickly goes Fatal Attraction on the hapless DI when their relationship turns sour. It's kind of a weird plotline, one that I kept expecting to intersect with the main story (even though it never did). Rebus's erstwhile paramour spraying him with paint--although darkly funny--is a bit more over-the-top than Rankin's domestic stories usually are. It's the tense, unhappy, dysfunctional undercurrent between Rebus and Patience that elevates the plotline beyond a bit of texture. Rebus's inability to find a functional relationship, and his increasing dependence on alcohol, is becoming one of the series' hallmarks.

Mortal Causes is another solid installment in the Rebus series, but the instant-classic feel just isn't there. Despite its many good points, there's not a lot that's especially memorable or noteworthy; it's just an entertaining, well-written crime novel with a terrific protagonist and a good supporting cast. If it wasn't for the fact that I know Ian Rankin can do better, I would probably have been perfectly satisfied (plot holes and a lack of narrative cohesion aside). Causes may not be as good as some of its predecessors, but it's still good enough, certainly. Maybe looking for the novel to recapture the intensity and pitch-perfect plotting of some of the earlier ones is unfair and unreasonable, although inevitable when reading a series. I will try to go into the next installment with suitably lowered expectations.

NEXT UP: The final book of the Hunger Games, Mockingjay.

The Black Book by Ian Rankin

The Black Book by Ian Rankin, 1993

The hotel had once been a traveller's paradise. It was sited on Princes Street, no distance at all from Waverly Station, and so had become a travelling businessman's home-from-home. But in its latter years, the Central had seen business decline. And as genuine business declined, so disingenuous business took over. It was no real secret that the Central's stuffy rooms could be hired by the hour or the afternoon. Room service would provide a bottle of champagne and as much talcum powder as any room's tenants required.

In other words, the Central had become a knocking-shop, and by no means a subtle one. It also catered to the town's shadier elements in all shapes and forms. Wedding parties and stag nights were held for a spread of the city's villains, and underage drinkers could loll in the lounge bar for hours, safe in the knowledge that no honest copper would stray inside the doors. Familiarity bred further contempt, and the lounge bar started to be used for drug deals, and other even less savoury deals too, so that the Central Hotel became something more than a mere knocking-shop. It turned into a swamp.

A swamp with an eviction order over its head.

The police couldn't turn a blind eye forever and a day, especially when complaints from the public were rising by the month. And the more trash was introduced to the Central, the more trash was produced by the place. Until almost no real drinkers went there at all. If you ventured into the Central, you were looking for a woman, cheap drugs, or a fight. And God help you if you weren't.

Then, as had to happen, one night the Central burnt down. This came as no surprise to anyone; so much so that reporters on the local paper hardly bothered to cover the blaze. The police, of course, were delighted. The fire saved them having to raid the joint.

But the next morning there was a solitary surprise; for though all the hotel's staff and customers had been accounted for, a body turned up amongst the charred ceilings and roofbeams. A body that had been burnt out of all recognition.

A body that had been dead when the fire started.--- (pages 30-31)

The Black Book is a very good crime novel, like all of Ian Rankin's books. The plot engages and holds your interest throughout, the characters are as vibrant as always and John Rebus' personal life takes center stage. There seems to be everything a fan of the Rebus series needs. So why did The Black Book, good as it was, leave me feeling a bit disappointed?

As usual, John Rebus's life, both personal and professional, is a mess. His girlfriend has kicked him out, just as his brother Michael returns to Edinburgh to crash in his flat (already rented out to several college students). When Rebus's friend and colleague, Brian Holmes, is brutally attacked, he begins digging into a ten-year old arson case with an unsolved murder attached. As the plot thickens and the bodies stack up, Rebus finds himself once again on the trail of the truth, with a dangerous gangster intent on either framing him or getting him out of the way.

I'll do the good first. There's certainly plenty to like about The Black Book, which is as readable and well-written as anything you're likely to find in the genre. I especially liked the emphasis on Rebus's chaotic home life and relationship with Michael, who hasn't shown up since Knots and Crosses. Rankin remains excellent at reflecting how the little things in life (like sharing a messy flat with five other people) can reflect on everything else.

The addition to the cast of Siobhan Clarke, a new officer under Rebus's supervision, is also totally successful and I very much like the way that Rankin has gradually built up the world of Rebus's police station, complete with petty politics and rivalries. Rebus being Rebus, naturally he gets pulled into more than one conflict with superiors. At least Clarke seems to be his ally for now (and possibly a love interest down the line?).

Another new character introduced is "Big Ger" Cafferty, a notorious gangster that we've been hearing about for several books now, and a figure that I believe turns out to be the series' Big Bad in the future. Cafferty doesn't disappoint; he's a suitably quirky nemesis for the equally quirky Rebus. Here's a man capable of stunningly brutal violence one minute, and general chumminess the next. The scene where Rebus goes jogging with him is delightfully weird and deliciously tense.

While the ancillary elements in The Black Book may be stellar, the main plot has problems. Unlike Strip Jack, which kept its focus squarely on Gregor Jack, Book juggles new characters, myriad plot threads (some of them only loosely related) and dozens of clues and misdirects. As a result, the plot feels looser and less foolproof than in previous installments. There are too many coincidences and Dickens-style tenuous connections propping up the plot, which also, unforgivably, lacks the gut-punch climax that I've come to expect from the Rebus series. Not that the ending isn't good (it mixes together several separate plot strands in a satisfying way), it's just not the car-chasing, house-burning, glass-punching finale that the previous books had conditioned me to be waiting for.

The other main thing that bothered me about Book (and about Strip Jack, too) is the subtle. . . mellowing. Rankin has stepped away from some of the unusual choices that made the first three books so damned good: Rebus's amorality and general loser-ness, the raw emotional power of the stories, the grit and darkness of the themes. There's a comparatively lighter touch here, and in Strip Jack, a broader feel, a greater conventionality, if that makes any sense. The Black Book reads as a more standard crime novel than its predecessors. That feeling of taking a peek into the fiery pits of human evil (and the equally strange world of the man who fights it) is missing. The solution to the central mystery is not scorching or horrifying or emotional; it's shrug-worthy.

I know that what this is is Rankin settling the series down for a prolonged run, which he probably wasn't anticipating earlier. Keeping up the early books' intensity and bleakness for twenty-plus novels would probably have been impossible, if not downright unsatisfying. I think Rankin still has the old craziness in him--he's just decided to pull it out less often.

The Black Book, then, is perhaps a bit of a series placeholder. The dip in quality is not that enormous or shocking--it's still a great read and would look even better if its predecessors hadn't been so excellent. A tighter plot and more emotional oomph is what I'm looking for from Mortal Causes. I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate how good Ian Rankin is. Because I do. Even at his weakest (and Book is the weakest novel of the series), he can still blow 95% of his competition out of the water.

NEXT UP: A short little potboiler, Make Death Love Me, from Ruth Rendell.

Strip Jack by Ian Rankin

Strip Jack by Ian Rankin, 1992

Rebus was more than halfway there before he realized he was headed not for Stockbridge comforts and Patience Aitken, but for Marchmont and his own neglected flat. So be it. Inside the flat, the atmosphere managed to be both chill and stale. A coffee mug beside the telephone resembled Glasgow insofar as it, too, was a city of culture, an interesting green and white culture.

But if the living room was growing mould, surely the kitchen would be worse. Rebus sat himself down in his favourite chair, stretched for the answering machine, and settled to listen to his calls. There weren't many. Gill Templer, wondering where he was keeping himself these days. . . as if she didn't know. His daughter Samantha, phoning from her new flat in London, giving him her address and telephone number. Then a couple of calls where the speaker had decided not to say anything.

"Be like that then." Rebus turned off the machine, drew a notebook from his pocket, and, reading the number from it, telephoned Gregor Jack. He wanted to know why Jack hadn't said anything about his own anonymous calls. Strip Jack. . . beggar my neighbour. . . Well, if someone were out to beggar Gregor Jack, Jack himself didn't seem overly concerned. He didn't exactly seem resigned, but he did seem unbothered. Unless he was playing a game with Rebus. . . And what about Rab Kinnoul, on-screen assassin? What was he up to all the time he was away from his wife? And Ronald Steele, too, a 'hard man to catch.' Were they all up to something? It wasn't that Rebus distrusted the human race. . . wasn't just that he was brought up a Pessimisterian. He was sure there was something happening here; he just didn't know what it was. ---(page 74)

Strip Jack is the fourth novel in the Rebus series and it's clear that, with this volume, Ian Rankin is settling in for the long haul. Recurring characters and storylines are being tied together, and the world of John Rebus's Edinburgh is becoming clearly defined. It's nice to see that the groundwork is being lain for the series to have an increased level of continuity. The previous three books in the series--all fantastic--were perhaps a bit uneven in terms of recurring elements.

I mention this development because I couldn't be happier with how the Rebus books are progressing. Wikipedia informs me that the series runs no less than seventeen books, which makes me feel like a drug addict who's just wandered into a massive marijuana greenhouse.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: these books are So Freaking Good. As I've finished each one, I've thought, Well, the next one can't possibly be this good. Strip Jack, with it's whodunit-style plot and marginally lighter tone, represents a slight change of pace from its predecessors--but then, each book has taken things in a new and invariably exciting direction.

When a raid on a high-class Edinburgh brothel reveals that beloved MP Gregor Jack has a dark secret, the public is shocked and the tabloids thrilled. John Rebus can't help but be fascinated by Jack, a man who is either a cold-hearted schemer or an innocent victim of a frame job, so when Jack is implicated in a close-to-home murder investigation, Rebus sets out to uncover the real killer and figure out who wants to strip Gregor Jack of his career.

Knots and Crosses brought emotional revelation and intense, psychological drama, Hide and Seek brought a tangled plot and dark horrors and Tooth and Nail brought grisly, fast-paced suspense. Strip Jack is altogether lighter fare ("lighter" being a highly relative term), more of a cerebral, character-based puzzle, more of a classic mystery than the previous three.

Rankin handles the plot beautifully, with a wide suspect pool of quirky characters and plenty of clues and clever misdirection. I absolutely love the fact that he has Rebus deliver the standard unraveling-and-deduction at the end, which turns out to be totally wrong. The eventual solution is a singularly satisfactory one, especially after the ingenious "false climax," which has always been one of my favorite literary devices.

But even though the plotting is excellent, it's Rankin's consummate skill with characterization and those small, lifelike details that makes the novel so enchanting. Rebus deals with the annoying realities of everyday life: a difficult romantic relationship, lack of sleep, a terrible car, a dumb boss, bad food, bad weather, his own impending middle age. Rankin knows that the mystery elements become more compelling when they're grounded in such a recognizable world.

The Rebus of Strip Jack is definitely in a better place than the Rebus of the first few books. Even though he's still gloomy and cynical, he has a fairly steady romance going (for him, at least) and none of the sexual hang-ups that have plagued him in the past. It's interesting to see him in a better place, although it's already clear that he will sabotage his relationship with Patience with his loner tendencies and obsessive work habits.

Ian Rankin novels are hard to review, because it's difficult not to just rattle off a laundry list of things I liked. Strip Jack is another winner, another little masterpiece of mood and pacing and satisfying resolution, shot through with fantastic characters and knife-sharp dialogue. And now let the wait for number five begin.

NEXT UP: Sara Gruen's blockbuster, Water for Elephants.

Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin

Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin, 1992

It's always a shame to see a superior series go down the toilet. Ian Rankin's two previous John Rebus novels were brilliant, but Number Three, Tooth and Nail, is just not operating on the same level. The story is stale, the prose unreadable, the characters shallow and poorly characterized.

Ha. Just kidding. Tooth and Nail is every bit as eye-poppingly wonderful as its two predecessors. Ian Rankin has a seemingly bottomless arsenal of writing weapons: riveting plot twists, razor-sharp prose, fabulous characters and the best sense of place this side of Diana Gabaldon.

After successfully bringing down a serial murderer in Knots and Crosses, Inspector John Rebus has unwittingly gained a reputation as an expert on the subject. So when a vicious serial killer dubbed the 'Wolfman' begins haunting London, Rebus is called away from his native Edinburgh to a huge, foreign city of red herrings, hidden motives, secret connections and a deranged killer who eludes detectives at every turn.

Rankin is an undisputed master of his form, equal to any mystery writer I can come up with. His novels have weight and complexity and some truly fantastic writing coupled with wonderful plots. Tooth and Nail, like the previous works in the series, works on many levels at once. It's a spine-tingling mystery (and a great one), but it's also the story of a man cursed with hardship and solitude, and the uncomfortably close relationship between good and evil.

As always, Rebus is a mesmerizing main character, capable of being pathetic, prickly, cruel and lovable all at once. I'm fairly certain I could read a book like John Rebus Goes to the Grocery Store or John Rebus Waits at the Dentist's Office and still be entertained and involved just because of his presence in the story.

The other characters are all just as fascinating. In London detective George Flight, Rankin has created a character that I would gladly read a second series about. Ian Rankin has the rare gift of being able to instantly and subtly establish a character from their first appearance. This is an indispensable talent for a mystery writer, since the suspect pool feels so vital and fascinating.

A good plot is even more important to a good mystery than the characters, and Tooth and Nail has a fantastic plot. Rankin sends the reader on another ingenious roller coaster ride, where everyone's a suspect and everything's a clue. He had me convinced that half a dozen different characters were the Wolfman before the final reveal, and I still never guessed it. And the action climax? Perfection. Rankin is an amazing master of suspense, tension and, most importantly, satisfying resolution.

His prose is still amazing, crystal-clear, alternately funny and haunting. He will always find the offbeat, the quirky, the human in any situation, even during the chilling sections written from the Wolfman's perspective or the details of a gruesome autopsy:

Soon enough, the whole mess of matter was being put together again, and Rebus knew that by the time any grieving relatives viewed the mortal remains of Jean Cooper, the body would look quite natural.

As ever by the end of the autopsy the room had been reduced to silent introspection. Each man and woman present was made of the same stuff as Jean Cooper, and now they stood, momentarily stripped of their individual personalities. They were all bodies, all animals, all collections of viscera. The only difference between them and Jean Cooper was that their hearts still pumped blood. But one day soon enough each heart would stop, and that would be an end of it, save for the possibility of a visit to this butcher's shop, this abattoir. ---(page 35)

Not only is the novel's main plot fabulous, but its main subplot (a Rankin staple) is good, too. Rebus's rivalry with his daughter's motorcycle-riding boyfriend Kenny is yet another example of why Rankin is so excellent. The subplot works beautifully on its own as a funny, moving study of Rebus's relationship with his daughter Sam, but it also serves to further muddy the waters of the book's main story, since Rankin subtly hints several times that Kenny is the Wolfman.

Really, the overpowering awesomeness of Tooth and Nail can be summed up in one simple statement: I read it in less than twenty-four hours. The plot is propulsive in the best kind of way. You're not reading like crazy because there's a gunfight every other page, but because you care so much about what's going on.

I don't think any mystery author I've ever read leaves me quite as fully satisfied on as many levels as Rankin. Why this man isn't touted as the new king of crime fiction is beyond me. Tooth and Nail is more proof--as if any is needed--that the John Rebus series is something special. And if it keeps being this good, I'm going to run out of superlatives to use in these reviews.

NEXT UP: A novel where no one is likely to be shot, stabbed, blown up or strangled: Anne Rivers Siddons' Outer Banks.

Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin

Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin, 1990

The first novel in Ian Rankin's celebrated Inspector Rebus series, Knots and Crosses, (1987), blew me away with its emotional power, well-written mystery and its compelling, complex main character.

I'm tempted to say that Hide and Seek is even better. It is not as emotional or as quite as psychologically complicated, but it is a riveting, dark look at a rotting city, as well as being an excellent, ever-twisting mystery. It's a small masterpiece of crime fiction.

John Rebus, a detective in the Scottish city of Edinburgh, arrives on the scene of an apparent overdose, a drug-addicted young man who lies dead surrounded by signs of Satanic worship.

Rebus thinks there's more to the case than a simple overdose. With the aid of the deceased's rebellious girlfriend and a wary young constable, Rebus follows a trail of drugs, blackmail, occultism and murder, a trail that leads from the city's lowest depths to its most affluent heights.

The most important thing in a mystery novel is the mystery itself, and this one's a doozy. Rankin is a master of pacing. He doesn't go for big action scenes, but there's an undercurrent of constant danger that keeps you frantically flipping pages.

The detective is the second-most important component of the mystery novel, and in John Rebus, Rankin has hit a gold mine. Rebus is cranky, lonely, self-destructive and often cruel to his inferiors at the police station, yet he's a surprisingly likable protagonist. He's the kind of fascinating character that I would willingly follow through fifteen or twenty books.

The large cast of supporting characters is equally well-drawn. One of the highlights of the novel for me was the partnership of Rebus and young, up-and-coming constable Brian Holmes. Their relationship never became a one-dimensional buddy-movie rivalry; it's nuanced and understated.

Rankin's prose and dialogue is as quirky and razor-sharp as in the previous installment, a nice combination of readable and poetic:

What was it the old man, Vanderhyde, had said said? Something about muddying the water. Rebus had the gnawing feeling that the solution to these many conundrums was a simple one, as crystal clear as one could wish. The problem was that extraneous stories were being woven into the whole. Do I mix my metaphors? Very well then, I mix my metaphors. All that counted was getting to the bottom of the pool, muddy or no, and bringing up that tiny cache of treasure called the truth.

He knew, too, that the problem was one of classification. He had to break the interlinked stories into separate threads, and work from those. At the moment, he was guilty of trying to weave them all into a pattern, a pattern that might not be there. By separating them all, maybe he'd be in with a chance of solving each. ---(pages 152-153)

Perhaps best of all, the novel's conclusion is perfect, a difficult feat to pull off in a mystery novel. The central puzzle is satisfyingly resolved, we get a short, intense burst of action and then some sly set-up for the rest of the series.

As much as I enjoyed Knots and Crosses, Hide and Seek is in some ways a stronger, more mature novel. It's a thrilling, sometimes shockingly deep ride into the dark side of humanity, and I loved every page.

NEXT UP: The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett.

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin, 1987

Although Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series is wildly popular in the UK, it's lesser known in the US. The seventeen-book series has a reputation for being at the top of the crime fiction genre. I definitely expected to enjoy Knots and Crosses, the first Rebus novel, but I didn't expect to fall in love with it forty pages in.

Rankin is just so good. His prose is a marriage of toughened noir narration and lyrical description. His dialogue is lean and believable. His main character, John Rebus, is a spectacularly realized creation.

The novel's plot is straight out of the police procedural fiction handbook. Inspector John Rebus is an asocial, hard-drinking police inspector in the crime-ridden Scottish city of Edinburgh. He has a history of nervous breakdowns, a young daughter and a dark past, a past that comes back to haunt him when a serial strangler begins terrorizing the city and sending Rebus cryptic messages.

The plot may be classic, but Rankin's style is so unique and his characters so compelling that it feels brand-new.

In a lot of ways, the book is more of a character study than a straight crime novel. We really get to know Rebus and yet he remains a bit of a mystery, to the readers and to himself. He's basically a good, moral man, yet he has a habit of stealing rolls from a bakery for his breakfast.

The mystery plot is really more of a Jekyll and Hyde tale. Rebus and his opposite number are two sides of the same coin. One is good and one is evil, but it is more complex than that. As the killer's fiendish plan brilliantly unfolds, we realize that the question isn't who, but why. The novel's final third is as thrilling a piece of mystery fiction as any I've read.

Rankin's prose is beautiful, sometimes hard-bitten and cruel, sometimes more poetic. He can invoke a sense of place or a state of mind with ease.

While a police-car slept nearby, its occupants unable to do anything save curse the mountains of rules and regulations and rue the deep chasms of crime. It was everywhere, crime. It was the life-force and the blood and the balls of life: to cheat, to edge, to take that body-swerve at authority, to kill. The higher up you climbed into crime, the more subtly you began to move back towards legitimacy, until a handful of lawyers only could crack open your system, and they were always affordable, always on hand to be bribed. Dostoevsky had known all that, clever old bastard. He had felt the stick burning from both ends. (page 42)

The novel is perhaps a bit short, and there's a subplot involving a crime reporter that was not quite at the same level of the rest of the book, but these are very small faults. Knots and Crosses is an excellent novel on any level and a pretty fantastic crime novel. The climax is perfect, which is a very rare achievement in this genre. It doesn't go overboard on action scenes; the book is too cerebral to resort to that.

But it's cynical, beaten-down John Rebus that has me excited for future installments. He promises to be a wonderful series character, at least based on this superb first entry.

NEXT UP: The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens