I came to Ian Rankin late, even though I had known the name and his reputation for a long time. So there are now 24 books about his detective John Rebus. I started at the beginning as I like to do and have now just read book number 8: ‘Black and Blue.’ Rebus lives and works in Edinburgh, a beautiful city but of course when you begin to strip off the layers and the veneer of money and shiny tourism, it has its shady, seedy side as all towns and cities do … even pretty villages when I think about it. The criminal element is also of course hiding in plain sight within the wealthy establishment as well as in the neglected, deprived housing estates on the outskirts of the city.
Interestingly Ian Rankin has not only used a real location but in this story he has utilised real events as well. In the 1960s a serial killer, nicknamed Bible John, committed three murders in Scotland that are to this day unsolved. Rankin takes this open situation and creates his story around it. What if Bible John returns? What if he murders again? Meanwhile there appears to be a copycat killer on the loose and as usual Rebus goes totally off piste in his investigations and finds himself in great trouble with his superiors. Added to this he is not sure who he can trust. Might some of his police colleagues be in the pocket of local gangsters? If you are very intuitive as well as efficient you might well find yourself close to where the crimes are committed on just too many occasions, thus making it plausible enough for malevolent minds to consider you worth investigating as a suspect.
As with all the detective/crime novels that I read, (there is a particular distinction but I can never remember quite what it is) I really am more interested in character development than in plot. I think of Susan Hill’s Simon Serrailler and Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway as well as John Rebus. I become fascinated by the lives that are written for them, how they gradually evolve from book to book and because these are all superlative writers these characters become three-dimensional and have a strong feeling of reality about them. Very satisfying. I can well appreciate the imagination and the skill that goes into inventing a plot line but that is not what holds me.
I have told myself I will gently and slowly make my way through these books, so having just zipped through books 7 and 8, I will try and leave it awhile before buying 9 and 10.
Thus, feeling I needed something as an antidote to the blood and gore (I can only take so much at one go) I searched my bookshelves for something that might be soothing. I then came across: ‘The death and life of Charlie St Cloud’ by Ben Sherwood. A little strange as I have no memory of reading or even buying this book but I decided to give it a go. Well, not terribly soothing at the beginning I admit as there is a car crash which Charlie narrowly survives and which his younger brother does not. However, then onwards the story is moving, thoughtful, sometimes funny and sometimes romantic. This is also set firmly in a real location: the small coastal town of Marblehead, 18 miles north of Boston Massachusetts. Fundamentally, Ben Sherwood is writing about the grief of bereavement and the need to eventually let go and live your life as fully as possible. Many people feel they have some contact with those who have already died. I’m not thinking about mediums and spiritualism but about still feeling close to someone and feeling sure you know what they are thinking or what they would do in a particular situation. Heaven is inevitably a tricky concept and one where we can’t find any firm answers. Our thoughts change as we go through life but the ‘not knowing’ remains. This was a surprising read but both enjoyable and interesting.
I am now reading a multi-generational family saga, one of those books that swallows you up. I will write about it next month.
Happy reading