Rebus: The Early Years - Knots and Crosses / Hide and Seek / Tooth and Nail by Ian Rankin - May 2000

Orion, May 2000. New Ed. Paperback. An omnibus edition of Ian Rankin's first three tales of John Rebus, this is a fascinating collection for any mystery fan, and a study in technique for anyone planning or hoping to write a crime fiction novel of their own. What is most evident in this title is the way in which Rankin's skill and confidence grow, and the almost transparent efforts he makes to resolve his worries about his art and his central character.\n'Knots and Crosses' is a hesitant start. Rebus, at this stage only a sergeant, gets sucked into the investigation of a series of murders in Edinburgh. Young girls are being killed, but Rebus is initially too preoccupied with his own domestic traumas to appreciate how intimately he is involved in the crimes. 'Hide and Seek' takes a now promoted Rebus into Edinburgh's seedy drugs world as he champions the right of a dead user to be treated as the victim of crime and not simply as a statistic. And in 'Tooth and Nail', Rebus is transferred down to London to help catch a serial killer who has the Met baffled.\nIt's fair to say that these are not classic murder mysteries. Each is flawed, each clearly evidences a working novelist coming to terms with his craft. Rebus is an engaging detective - you can see his character emerging from the novels, can see how the author plays with its various facets, trying to get a balance, trying to create a multi-dimensional figure.\nAnd you can see Rankin coming to terms with the Edinburgh setting, growing in confidence about how to handle it, then perhaps having doubts about the city's ability to sustain a literary detective. Rankin does play with the Jeckyll and Hyde theme (paying homage to a great Edinburgh writer), and will toy with the Jack the Ripper legacy of London, almost as if he is searching for a vehicle for his writing, some way of exploring crime as a sociological and psychological phenomenon, but a phenomenon which is regularly distorted by questions of the nature of 'evil', whether as philosophical or populist concept.\n"Rebus: the Early Years" is an entertaining and engaging read which will whet your appetite for future Rebus titles ("Strip Jack" will be the fourth - indeed, the next three titles are also available in omnibus form as "Three Great Novels: Strip Jack / The Black Book / Mortal Causes".