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Much of the book is dominated by two new settings--a sink estate divided between racist thugs and refugees, and a small town whose economy is dominated by an internment camp for those about to be deported; this is one of Rankin's preachier thrillers, but it is never less than intelligent and evocative in its descriptions of a contemporary squalor that spreads beyond the inner city. These are never quite orthodox police procedurals--Rebus' method is a little too like the standard private eye's way of wandering around being rude to people until something comes loose--but they have a deep seriousness about the way we live now that transcends mere noir moodiness.--Roz Kaveney
The question, at this stage in Rankin's career, is not "can he write a bad book?" but, "can he even write a lacklustre one?" The answer, unequivocally, is no. At first, I was a little nervous about this new novel, which sees Rebus investigating the stabbing of a Kurdish immigrant in a grotty underpass on an Edinburgh housing scheme called Knoxland. Partly because the "asylum-seeker issue" is so incredibly well-worn in this country, taking up more pages of newspaper-columnage than any other, probably. I was a little worried that it'd feel a little recycled, a little tired, but I was wrong to be worried. I had misplaced my faith in Rankin! Honestly, when you routinely get one novel per year (well, roughly) that is always of such quality, it's very easy to forget how good some authors are.
The issues here do not feel tired at all. Instead, what Rankin does is use his novel as a kind of melting-pot for the discussion so far, as well as adding a few snappy ingredients of his own. It serves as a level-headed, cool examination of an issue that so often gets drowned and distorted in its own hysteria.
As Rankin himself has said, it's a book about what it means to be on the edge, to be an outsider. Here, it also succeeds unquestionably. We are practically barraged with images of outsiders, of people living just on the fringe or outside the lines. Rebus himself is an outsider here: St Leonard's CID is being disbanded, its officers sent to other stations. Rebus, along with Siobhan Clarke, is placed in the unfamiliar territory of Gayfield Square, and finds himself tagging along at the edge of an investigation in which he really has no place, though no one seems to care what he's doing anyway.
Read more ›The question, at this stage in Rankin's career, is not "can he write a bad book?" but, "can he even write a lacklustre one?" The answer, unequivocally, is no. At first, I was a little nervous about this new novel, which sees Rebus investigating the stabbing of a Kurdish immigrant in a grotty underpass on an Edinburgh housing scheme called Knoxland. Partly because the "asylum-seeker issue" is so incredibly well-worn in this country, taking up more pages of newspaper-columnage than any other, probably. I was a little worried that it'd feel a little recycled, a little tired, but I was wrong to be worried. I had misplaced my faith in Rankin! Honestly, when you routinely get one novel per year (well, roughly) that is always of such quality, it's very easy to forget how good some authors are.
The issues here do not feel tired at all. Instead, what Rankin does is use his novel as a kind of melting-pot for the discussion so far, as well as adding a few snappy ingredients of his own. It serves as a level-headed, cool examination of an issue that so often gets drowned and distorted in its own hysteria.
As Rankin himself has said, it's a book about what it means to be on the edge, to be an outsider. Here, it also succeeds unquestionably. We are practically barraged with images of outsiders, of people living just on the fringe or outside the lines. Rebus himself is an outsider here: St Leonard's CID is being disbanded, its officers sent to other stations. Rebus, along with Siobhan Clarke, is placed in the unfamiliar territory of Gayfield Square, and finds himself tagging along at the edge of an investigation in which he really has no place, though no one seems to care what he's doing anyway.
Read more ›The question, at this stage in Rankin's career, is not "can he write a bad book?" but, "can he even write a lacklustre one?" The answer, unequivocally, is no. At first, I was a little nervous about this new novel, which sees Rebus investigating the stabbing of a Kurdish immigrant in a grotty underpass on an Edinburgh housing scheme called Knoxland. Partly because the "asylum-seeker issue" is so incredibly well-worn in this country, taking up more pages of newspaper-columnage than any other, probably. I was a little worried that it'd feel a little recycled, a little tired, but I was wrong to be worried. I had misplaced my faith in Rankin! Honestly, when you routinely get one novel per year (well, roughly) that is always of such quality, it's very easy to forget how good some authors are.
The issues here do not feel tired at all. Instead, what Rankin does is use his novel as a kind of melting-pot for the discussion so far, as well as adding a few snappy ingredients of his own. It serves as a level-headed, cool examination of an issue that so often gets drowned and distorted in its own hysteria.
As Rankin himself has said, it's a book about what it means to be on the edge, to be an outsider. Here, it also succeeds unquestionably. We are practically barraged with images of outsiders, of people living just on the fringe or outside the lines. Rebus himself is an outsider here: St Leonard's CID is being disbanded, its officers sent to other stations. Rebus, along with Siobhan Clarke, is placed in the unfamiliar territory of Gayfield Square, and finds himself tagging along at the edge of an investigation in which he really has no place, though no one seems to care what he's doing anyway.
Read more ›
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