Doors Open (original 2008; edition 2008)

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2108490.html

An excellent story of a raid on the National Gallery of Scotland, mostly from the point of view of the upper-middle class robbers who hire an underworld boss as an accomplice, and also that of the detective investigating them. I expected the tension to be about whether or not they would be caught - and knowing Rankin, either is possible - but in fact there was an excellent twist at the end when the real story is revealed. ( )

Ian Rankin’s Doors Open is a heist-cum-caper story set in contemporary Edinburgh, and his first novel since he announced that he was not planning to write any more Rebus stories. A group of middle class academics and a banker get involved in planning and executing the ‘perfect crime’ – a plan to ‘steal’ artworks from galleries across Edinburgh whilst they’re not on public display. Like most stories of this kind, it doesn’t turn out to be as straightforward as first planned, and events soon start to spiral out of control. There’s the obligatory Rankin stock characters – the disgruntled police officer and a local small-time crook that has delusions of grandeur by believing he’s actually Edinburgh’s Mr Big. The ending’s just about OK, but nothing spectacular, and at times I had to force myself to care enough about these lacklustre individuals enough to finish the book.

The writing was fairly low-key – no stylistic challenges to be found here – with a somewhat wearing use of copious amounts of dialogue to explain the plot and keep things moving. I would assume that this is a book that could easily be adapted into a fairly uninspiring ITV drama, as there would be relatively little for the screen writer to do when adapting it for the screen. I can’t really recommend this, except that it’s an easy read, great for a long train journey say, when it doesn’t matter if your attention wanders, or you’re distracted by the noisy family across the aisle.

© Koplowitz 2012 ( )

I found this a great read and so have been surprised to read less than brilliant reviews from other readers. Rebus on TV was my only prior knowledge of Rankin. If this is an example of his second-best writing, I have a lot to look forward to. I plan to start from book one in the Rebus series. Great, another lengthy collection to add to my "must read before I die" list, and the years are flying by. ( )

The National Gallery of Scotland is home to many treasures of the art world. Painting, sculpture, drawings -- there's so much of it in the collection that not all of it can be displayed in the gallery. Instead, it sits in the Granton warehouse, which is off-limits to the public. For impassioned art lovers such as software maven Mike Mackenzie, First Caledonia Bank employee Allan Cruikshank, and art professor Robert Gissing, it's a crime to have the art languishing in such an unloved state. So why not commit another crime and liberate them?

This is a very fun heist caper, reminiscent of Ocean's Eleven and Reservoir Dogs (minus Quentin Tarantino's brand of graphic violence) -- the movies are even name-checked in the story. Newly minted "gang leader" Mike Mackenzie is the main focus of the story as he settles into his role and discovers that he might have a taste for this sort of life. Or at least he is the most prominent character. The main "character" is Edinburgh itself -- given that the heist involves the property of the National Gallery of Scotland. Rankin's sense of place is excellent in this book and will seriously tempt the reader to jump on a plane and go (in the meantime, you can see the gallery's offerings, or rather all three National Galleries' offerings, here). The story is evenly paced and is very satisfying to read. If you're a fan of Rebus, you may regret that he isn't here for this story, but everything else that makes a Rankin book enjoyable is here. And if you haven't tried Rankin before, this is a good way to get a feel for his style and explore Edinburgh as portrayed in his pages. ( )

I usually enjoy anything that Ian Rankin writes. His long-running series featuring Inspector Rebus has been consistently good and his new series, featuring an utterly un-Rebus-like detective, is even better. So I expected quite a bit from Doors Open, a stand-alone novel. Doors Open tells the story of Mike, self-made millionaire who, having sold his company, is bored. He's started collecting art, which is fun and has made him two friends, a soon-to-retire art professor and a banker who buys art for the bank he works for. They talk about the usual things people interested in art discuss and agree that art purchased for investment and stored in vaults is an abomination. From there, there is a leap to deciding that they would be more appreciative owners and, after not being able to come up with a way to rob a bank, they come up with a cunning plan to rob a museum.

This is where Rankin lost me for a while. Liberating artwork from the unappreciative mega-wealthy is one thing; stealing from the public in order to own a piece of art that can then never be shared is quite another. It turned the book from a fun crime romp into something less fun, for me, anyway. Rankin turns it around, but it took me awhile to see what he was doing. In any case, the final third of the book is brilliant in it's unraveling. ( )