Falling for Rankin and Rebus (The Falls - Ian Rankin)

Member Name: sandrabarber

Product:	The Falls - Ian Rankin
Date:	31/03/02 (59 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Thrilling, Fascinating, Very well written

Disadvantages: None

‘The Falls’ is the latest in Ian Rankin’s series of crime thrillers featuring Detective John Rebus, and for me it’s one of the best.

For those who don’t know, Rebus is an Edinburgh detective who drinks too much, broods too much, has too many regrets, too much stubbornness, too bad a temper and a streak of individualism which constantly lands him in hot water. He is loved and loathed in equal measure by his colleagues.

‘The Falls’ centres around the disappearance of a wealthy banker’s daughter called ‘Flip’, and the appearance of a series of tiny coffins in strange places over a period of hundreds of years.

As Rebus and his adoring assistant, Siobhan Clarke, begin to look for Flip, they come to realize that she was involved in an internet role-playing game run by a sinister anonymous master.

While Rebus follows the trail of the tiny coffins, Clarke takes on Flip’s identity in the role playing game and becomes involved in a myriad of conundrums which lead her to many of Edinburgh’s most outlying and historical places.

Rebus meanwhile becomes enmeshed with Flip’s boyfriend and his cold-hearted parents, a dotty potter, a retired professor with too much time on his hands, a voracious journalist, the world of high-finance, a complex combination of missing persons and the hidden recesses of the Edinburgh library and museum.

Along the way Rebus also begins a relationship he begins a sexual liaison with the museum’s curator.

As usual with Rankin’s work, we are soon wondering who is telling the truth, who is really on who’s side, and where the red herrings are lurking as events twist and turn in every direction.

No one evokes Edinburgh like Rankin, and in this novel we are treated to the light and dark sides of that city both past and present as we travel from the 19th century body-snatching Burke and H
are to today’s trendy bars and restaurants. No cobbled back alley, low-life pub or historical corridor is left unvisited.

This novel is a real page-turner as well as an education into the history of the beautiful and fascinating city of Edinburgh. The sights, sounds and smells of the place – from gutter to castle - are so acutely evoked that it is actually like being there.

Of course I won’t give away the ending, but will say that I didn’t guess who did it. And even if I had guessed it would not have spoiled my enjoyment of this fast-moving, dark, fascinating and sometimes funny novel.

If you already love Rankin's work you won't be disappointed with his latest. If you're new to him, prepare to be totally seduced by the city of Edinburgh and the infuriatingly lovable John Rebus.

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