Devon Cream Teas and the ‘Tartan Noir’ (The Falls - Ian Rankin)

Member Name: merv

Product:	The Falls - Ian Rankin
Date:	03/08/02 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Well written, Good plot, Colourful Characters

Disadvantages: The reason I read it

Eight days in Devon, my favourite English seaside County. Beautiful weather, dry and sunny all week, lovely company and a wonderful place to stay.

Sounds perfect doesn’t it? Well it would have been if I hadn’t have got food poisoning after two days – the very thought of a clotted cream tea still makes me feel nauseous. So I ended up for a large part of my holiday unable to venture more than fifty metres or to put it another way, twenty seconds from the bathroom.

Looking on the bright side, as I always endeavour to do, there were some pretty miserable compensations. Firstly I survived without alcohol for five days and now class myself as virtually tee total. Secondly I lost 5 lbs and dipped under twelve stone for the first time in about five years. Thirdly, three days hardly moving from our apartment balcony has given me a nice tan. Lastly I managed to read a book in three days, a task which for several years has been beyond me – my wife once remarked that I take longer to read them than the authors do to write them.

And what a good book it was. Morbid and depressing, in keeping with my mood, but thoroughly enjoyable nevertheless. I’ve always been a great fan of Ian Rankin’s ‘Rebus’ novels which are blended as well as any malt whiskey with classic mystery, Scottish history, Edinburgh atmosphere and really strong characters. A blend the author James Ellroy described as ‘Tartan Noir’, very apt as they are somewhat on the dark side and don’t exactly come across with much humour as perhaps the Taggart and Morse books do.

As always with Ian Rankin, the book is set in Edinburgh which is itself an important character a seemingly pleasant and attractive Scottish city, with a seedy, dark heart known best to the people who police her. Incidentally, I love Edinburgh and would be fascinated to know if this is really the case (can anyone out there advise?)

The plot is
fairly straightforward. Phillipa Balfour, a student has gone missing, but she’s not just any student, she’s the daughter of a wealthy and influential Scottish banker. There’s very little to go on until DI Rebus gets that ‘auld gut feeling’, common amongst TV and crime novel detectives, that there’s more to this than just another rebellious teenager, using dad’s money to show how independent she is.

Two leads emerge.

A miniature coffin containing a doll turns up near her family home. Rebus’s inquiry reveals that similar coffins have been found after four other mysterious disappearances over the last thirty years. He knows there’s a connection, even though his colleagues aren’t convinced. There’s also a historical and a romantic connection: the Museum of Scotland features a rather attractive curator and more importantly a display of similar, unexplained coffins unearthed nearly two hundred years earlier at an Edinburgh landmark known as Arthur’s Seat.

Rebus’s colleague, Siobhan Clarke, follows a more contemporary line of inquiry. She discovers an e-mail message on Philippa’s computer from someone called Quizmaster who was guiding Philippa through a sophisticated on-line adventure that may have ended in her death. Quizmaster tempts Clarke with the same set of obscure clues which takes her and her geeky sidekick out of the city and into the mountains. For some reason Anneka Rice and Treasure Hunt kept coming into my mind – I kept thinking of Siobhan in a blue shell suit and radio mike. It was probably the effect of the immodium.

Rankin skillfully handles an enormous cast of colorful characters and an intricate plot. I’ve already mentioned Edinburgh, add to that the hard drinking, chain smoking, melancholic Rebus, divorced and living alone, in his mid-fifties, forever flaunting authority, he is out of step with the younger members of his de
partment and mandatory retirement looms a few years ahead. Sounds like a perfect role model to me. In the Falls he’s in the process of selling his house even though he hasn’t got anywhere else to live. He wants a change and thinks a new flat is the answer to his malaise

His boss, the newly appointed Detective Chief Superintendent Gill Templer is an old flame of Rebus’ whose heels I recall rather splendidly dug into his buttocks all those years ago, in his first book, Knots and Crosses. She needs to produce results on this high-profile case while trying to find her footing in the new position, while her predecessor, “Farmer” Watson, also prominent in previous Rebus books, is trying to adjust to a new life in mandatory retirement. Siobhan plays a much greater part in this book and if she doesn’t take over from Anneka I’ve got a feeling that Ian Rankin is going to give her Rebus’ job when the mandatory retirement becomes reality.

The women in Rankin’s books always fascinate me – how can they all be interested in this sad and miserable bloke in his mid fifties, perhaps that’s the answer? I think I’ll write a book about a cheerful detective – I could call it ‘The Laughing Policemen’ at least it would be original. Morse, Rebus, Taggart, Marlowe, Holmes, Poirot, Frost, not exactly a bundle of laughs!

Anyway, back to the plot. Red herrings abound and our detectives seem to be getting nowhere until near the end when suddenly things begin to fall into place and the pace accelerates relentlessly.

The book is full of vitality and suspense, incredibly inventive and absorbing with a fascinating plot. I thoroughly recommend it.

Rebus is getting darker and deeper and I’m starting to worry about him. Read it while he’s still around – the ideal solution to take your mind off a very unsettled stomach.

Summary: