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A review by tfitoby
Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
3.0
Soft-boiled crime fiction? Hard-boiled light? Lightly fried with a twist of tarragon?
As the debut of Ian Rankin's Rebus this is a fine book filled with promise.
Rebus is a drunk divorcee formerly of the SAS and now a DS in the Edinburgh police force. There's somebody abducting and killing children and there's no pattern that anyone can see. So far, so cliche. Where Rankin differs from all those other generic modern police procedurals that are oh so popular with the masses is that he doesn't seem to care about the investigation or the procedure. (I'm told that in later books he becomes much more of a regular cop however.)
Right from the start Rankin creates a bleak introspective tone for the novel and his protagonist quite clearly borrowed from [a:Derek Raymond|122886|Derek Raymond|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1280676928p2/122886.jpg]'s Factory series, complete with the same Detective Sergeant rank as Raymond's anonymous cop and the same attitude towards his superiors/promotion. The fact that Rebus solves brutal murders from the grittiest sides of Edinburgh, the dark heart of contemporary Britain which lurks behind the elegant and historic facade was said of Raymond multiple times.
The differences are what makes this a much weaker novel than it might have been. Compared to other popular crime fiction this might be a dark proposition but to me it just feels like Rankin was either holding back on the darkness or has simply written a book that can be classed as "Factory-light." It's not just Rebus that suffers in comparison, the supporting cast are barely worth a mention, cut from the flimsiest of cardboard and relying on cliche, when the story is told from their point of view I lost interest and it doesn't really add anything to the novel except a bigger word count. There's a backstory that's worked in to the investigation in a clever way but it wasn't interesting or new in itself and the denouement was weak. Oh yeah his use of the "Jekyll & Hyde" device was a pitiful attempt at a red herring, just because one character thinks it with no evidence to back it up (and then repeat it every 30 pages or so) it doesn't mean that an intelligent reader is going to fall for it.
Those complaints aside it was an enjoyable and easy read, better than I expected and ended in a way that didn't require 17 more books from its author on the subject. I'll probably give the second one a go at some point as it was only $1 but I fear it will go downhill fast or at the most stay at the same mildly interesting level.
As the debut of Ian Rankin's Rebus this is a fine book filled with promise.
Rebus is a drunk divorcee formerly of the SAS and now a DS in the Edinburgh police force. There's somebody abducting and killing children and there's no pattern that anyone can see. So far, so cliche. Where Rankin differs from all those other generic modern police procedurals that are oh so popular with the masses is that he doesn't seem to care about the investigation or the procedure. (I'm told that in later books he becomes much more of a regular cop however.)
Right from the start Rankin creates a bleak introspective tone for the novel and his protagonist quite clearly borrowed from [a:Derek Raymond|122886|Derek Raymond|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1280676928p2/122886.jpg]'s Factory series, complete with the same Detective Sergeant rank as Raymond's anonymous cop and the same attitude towards his superiors/promotion. The fact that Rebus solves brutal murders from the grittiest sides of Edinburgh, the dark heart of contemporary Britain which lurks behind the elegant and historic facade was said of Raymond multiple times.
The differences are what makes this a much weaker novel than it might have been. Compared to other popular crime fiction this might be a dark proposition but to me it just feels like Rankin was either holding back on the darkness or has simply written a book that can be classed as "Factory-light." It's not just Rebus that suffers in comparison, the supporting cast are barely worth a mention, cut from the flimsiest of cardboard and relying on cliche, when the story is told from their point of view I lost interest and it doesn't really add anything to the novel except a bigger word count. There's a backstory that's worked in to the investigation in a clever way but it wasn't interesting or new in itself and the denouement was weak. Oh yeah his use of the "Jekyll & Hyde" device was a pitiful attempt at a red herring, just because one character thinks it with no evidence to back it up (and then repeat it every 30 pages or so) it doesn't mean that an intelligent reader is going to fall for it.
Those complaints aside it was an enjoyable and easy read, better than I expected and ended in a way that didn't require 17 more books from its author on the subject. I'll probably give the second one a go at some point as it was only $1 but I fear it will go downhill fast or at the most stay at the same mildly interesting level.