Naming of the Dead - Ian Rankin

When you write a contemporary book its worth deciding if you want the book to be ultra relevant for today or a book that will age well. A great book will age slowly as although the fashions and environments differ the core story still works; for this reason classics still sell in their millions. Whether a book ages gracefully or not should have nothing to do with its setting, but sometimes it does. Populate the book with outdated technology and you may find the book written in 2004 is already backwards. The same pitfalls can occur to authors setting their book during a contemporary event such as an Olympic Games or World Cup - you are date stamping you novel forever. ...  Read the complete review

I have fallen behind of late with my reading as I keep finding new authors that are fascinating. As a result, I recently checked how I was doing with Ian Rankin's Rebus books, and realised that I am, indeed, a couple behind. with this one and the subsequent 'Exit Music' to read and get up to date on. So I settled down to read The Naming of the Dead, expecting and hoping for another thoroughly good Rankin tale. And essentially I got it. Another murder case for Rebus to solve, some more bosses to annoy and a whole lot of trouble to get into is the order of the day, and not for the first time for the Scottish Detective Inspector. Set in 2005, Rankin uses the ...  Read the complete review

This book I bought for more personal reasons than the usual 'it just jumped in to the basket, Dad, honest' excuse I give when my Dad spots yet more books migrating on to the already groaning book cases in my room. My reasons simply were that as well as enjoying the other books which feature Rebus, during the period of time this book was set I was living in Stirling and working near the location of the G8 summit and Gleneagles during the day and in the City Centre at night. So my experiences of seeing the marchers, small scale riots, Protesters Camps and getting stuck in road blocks meant this book would either confirm my suspicsions about Ian Rankin's eye for detail and ...  Read the complete review