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Title: Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0-312-95673-8 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 December, 1995 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.73 (22 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Knotty problems from Ian Rankin
Comment: What a pleasure it is to discover an untapped mystery series. It was almost purely by chance that I picked up Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses, but it will be with eagerness that I pursue the other books about John Rebus of the Edinburgh police force.
Knots and Crosses is in part a classic police procedural that takes place in the seamy side of Edinburgh that guidebooks never show and that tourists never suspect. The hunted criminal is a serial killer - "But here, in Edinburgh. It's intolerable." The book is also a fascinating psychological mystery with the events of the present rooted in the past and shaped by the meetings of minds. The intricate but never stretched plot is full of unexpected interconnections among the cast of characters.
The chief joy in reading the novel comes from the writing itself. As the title and the detective's name hint, we're in for word play and words loaded with meaning. Thrown in is some hypnotism, excesses of tobacco, sex, and alcohol, a love of books and literature, and love.
As the investigation heats and the killer has the "police force tied in knots," Rebus "was feeling like the detective in a cheap thriller and wished that he could turn to the last page." We are lucky; this is not a cheap thriller and we enjoy every page up to the very satisfying last.
Rating: 4
Summary: A solid start to a brilliant series
Comment: I read a lot of mysteries (too many) and Ian Rankin's Rebus series is probably my favorite. As the first entry in the series, Knots & Crosses is essential reading. And while it isn't as good and rather more conventional than later entries (Hide & Seek, The Black Book and Mortal Causes are outstanding) it has all the elements of a solid mystery. These include a very human, even damaged, detective, well-developed subsidiary characters, a fast-moving plot and a surprising resolution. Best of all is the atmospheric setting of Edinburgh--the dark, sleazy side tourists don't see.
The Rebus series definitely belongs to the more hard-boiled school of detective fiction, and therefore may not appeal to those who prefer "cozies." But because these books are so well written and the character of Rebus is so compelling, I can see Knots & Crosses and the rest of the series appealing even to people who don't usually read mysteries.
Rating: 5
Summary: Twisted minds and the dark secrets of Edinburgh's other side
Comment: He had wanted to update Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" for modern times, Ian Rankin writes about his first Inspector Rebus novel, "Knots and Crosses" in the introduction to the British compilation "Rebus: The Early Years" (unfortunately, not available in the U.S.), which contains the first three installments of the series. Oblivious to the mere existence of such a thing as the mystery genre - or so Rankin says - he was stunned to soon hear his book described first and foremost as a crime novel. But eventually this characterization prompted him to have a closer look at the work of other mystery writers, and he found that the form suited his purposes just fine; that in fact he "could say everything [he] wanted to say about the world, and still give readers a pacy, gripping narrative."
Bearing in mind the original duality of Jekyll and Hyde, however, Rankin's tales are not dominated by a contrast painted in black and white. While the villains Inspector Rebus faces are certainly every bit as evil as Stevenson's Mr. Hyde, Rebus himself is far from a clean-slated "good guy:" Divorced, cynical, hard-drinking and a former member of the SAS, he is a brother in spirit to every noir detective from Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe to Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch, James Ellroy's squad of crooked cops and Peter Robinson's Alan Banks. Nor is Rebus's Edinburgh the touristy town of Calton Hill, castle and Summer Festival (although the series has meanwhile sparked real-life guided tours to its most famous locations, too) - as befitting a true detective of his ilk, Rankin's antihero moves primarily in the city's dark and dirty underbelly, which is populated by society's losers and where those who have "made it," those with money in their pockets, only show up if they have shady deals to conduct as well.
In a similar fashion to Michael Connelly's first Harry Bosch novel "The Black Echo," where Bosch is forced to revisit the experiences he made as a Vietnam "tunnel rat," in "Knots and Crosses" Rebus must uncover long-buried memories of his SAS past. For hunting a serial killer whom the tabloids quickly dub "The Edinburgh Strangler," and whose headline-gathering murders at first seem totally unrelated, Rebus eventually makes the connection between those crimes and a series of anonymous letters he receives, and realizes that it is he himself who is the killer's true target, and that the murderer's crimes are based on such a cruel scheme - and executed with such inhuman skill and precision - that only one particular man's thoroughly disturbed mind can have come up with them. And at the same time, Rebus is trying to work out his difficult relationship with his brother Michael, whose life is so different from his own - financially successful and ostensibly happily married and squeaky clean throughout, Michael seems to be on the sunny side of life in every respect labeled a failure in Rebus's own life story - but he soon discovers that even Michael has secrets he is trying hard to keep from coming to light.
While this series had a terrific start already in its first novel, published in 1987, Rebus's character - and Rankin's writing - has evolved significantly over time. Thus, it is probably wise to read it in the order of publication. Contrary to the novels he wrote under the pseudonym Jack Harvey, however, and which he views much more critically in hindsight, Ian Rankin overall still seems to be very happy with his early Rebus books, commenting almost nostalgically: "I can't read them without thinking back to my own early years, my apprenticeship as a crime writer. Read and enjoy." I have nothing to add to that ...
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Title: Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0312963971 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0312958781 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Strip Jack by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0312965141 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 May, 1998 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0312960948 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 January, 1997 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Black Book by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0312976755 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: October, 2000 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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