Fleshmarket Close

I've come late to Ian Rankin and the Rebus novels (in more ways than one), and I was warned that in starting with 'Fleshmarket Close' I would be pitched into a well-established character and backstory. But I'd recently come to understand that the author was friends with two other writers whose work I admire - Ken MacLeod and Iain Banks - and so I felt I needed to complete my education.

I need not have worried. Rankin is so at home with his characters that by this 15th book in the series, he does not feel the need to tell, but can show instead. I quickly picked up on most of Rebus and Siobhan's character traits, and what I didn't know I could reasonably easily fill in. After all, Rebus is a Saab driver (like me), I have visited Edinburgh show more a few times, and I have worked with Scots on many occasions. This was all quite familiar to me.

The plot concerned two apparently unrelated cases, one of which doesn't seem to be a crime at all. But others get drawn into the picture until we have a tapestry that makes an unpleasant big picture when you stand back from it. Perhaps there's a lot of interconnectedness between the cases that might stretch credulity a bit, but this is a thriller novel after all; what would be the point of a crime novel where there was only one victim, their circumstances lacked complications and the steps leading to the apprehension of their killer were straightforward matters of filling in the boxes to see what answer pops out?

The book is shot through with Scots humour and the detail of Edinburgh police bureaucracy is particularly telling. Do not make the mistake of getting on the wrong side of the Edinburgh Drugs Squad! show less

I loved Ian Rankin's 'Fleshmarket Alley'.....in fact, I have probably over-rated it a bit just due to the fact that it was the right book at the right time for me: a whodunnit with great characters and solid police work.

Detective Rebus is one of the great, underrated characters in this genre. He knows his territory (Edinburgh) and its inhabitants like the back of his hand, he comes across to his peers as gruff yet competent, and he has trouble playing nicely with his superiors. Sounds like a bunch of other characters in the crime genre, but Rebus is actually one of a kind. His gruffness is a facade in front of feelings he takes great care to hide and he has many facets to his character that are exposed through Rankin's series. I've show more read the Rebus novels out of sequence so I don't have a linear view of how his character has been developed, but I can say that Rankin has done a great job creating him and showing his readers exactly who he is.

Fleshmarket has several plot elements that somehow eventually intersect. A young immigrant man is murdered in a rough part of town while a couple of old skeletons are unearthed in another. Throw in some drugs, white slavery, refugees, immigrant integration, race, and a little romance for the main characters and you have a target rich environment for a police procedural. The action isn't breathtakingly fast, but it moves along quickly.

One reason I like the Rebus series so well is that it's based across the pond and I like to think about the differences between 'them and us'. They may talk kind of funny, but the crimes are similar what you'd see over here, except for the relative absence of guns. The legal system is obviously different, but the job of the police seems to be pretty much the same.

One really interesting topic addressed in Fleshmarket was the immigration issue. At the time it was written (in the early 2000's) Scotland was facing a lot of illegal immigration and refugees and two of the key sites in the investigations were the immigration detention center (where the illegals are 'housed') and a high-rise project in Edinburgh where legal immigrants have found housing. Both are prisons, of a sort. Anyway, immigration was an important facet of this novel and it was fascinating to see how it was covered and reacted to by the Scottish characters.

All-in-all, a fine read! show less

This is number 15 in this much-beloved series. I have enjoyed each and every one of the previous books in the series. Rebus is a character that is so realistic that I can't help thinking that if I walk into the Oxford Bar I'll see him there drinking a whiskey and smoking a cigarette. That is Ian Rankin's gift-drawing realistic, three-dimensional characters and crafting very tricky mysteries around them. In this book Rebus is working with another DI. The body of a young immigrant man was found in a dark alley in one of Edinburgh's more seedy neighbourhoods. At first glance it looks like a hate crime, but as Rebus digs, he finds it is much more complicated than it first appears. Siobhan has her own case to pursue. The body of a convicted show more rapist is found in another dark alley in another seedy neighbourhood. These two quite separate cases turn out be connected in some way. This series continues to satisfy at all levels. Great storytelling, wonderfully intricate plotting, remarkable characterization of both the old, loved characters, as well as new ones and a friendship between two colleagues that seems to strengthen more with each book. Can't wait to read the next one. show less

An immigrant is murdered at the Edinburgh housing project where he had been living, sending DI John Rebus on a quest to uncover the depths of racism, human trafficking and illegal housing schemes. Meanwhile, DS Siobhan Clarke is asked to locate a missing woman, the sister of a girl who had been raped and subsequently committed suicide; the rapist has just been freed from prison and the woman’s parents are worried for her safety. When another murder occurs, the separate inquiries start to overlap, in ways surprising to all…. The issues of illegal immigration and human trafficking seem never to go on the back burner; they are just as relevant in 2023 as they were when Mr. Rankin published this book in 2004, and unfortunately just as show more intractable. The relationships between Rebus and others in the police force are somewhat muted in this outing, but the humanity of all the characters (especially the refugees) is, as ever, front and center and well worth noting. Recommended. show less

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One of the best Rebus books so far, three intertwined mysteries taking our hero and his protégée to the murky underworld of asylum centres, strip clubs, and illegal immigration; I felt that Ian Rankin was trying unusually hard to include social commentary on all these issues into the story, and even more unusually I thought he succeeded. Perhaps the most unrealistic aspect is that we discover Rebus to be a staunch anti-racist, which seems a little (though not hugely) out of character from previous books. Very strongly recommended.

Rebus is juggling the murder of an asylum seeker, some mysterious unearthed human bones, and a girl who seems to have vanished out of thin air. There are slightly too many story lines to keep track of and a huge amount of information on bureaucracy, which slows the action down somewhat. However, as usual, the characters, the dialogue, and the vistas are absolutely remarkable, and I have a hard time faulting any part of this series only because I have so much fun reading, even to the point that I sometimes go back and reread some of the dialogue aloud to myself. In honesty, what else could you ask from any book?

It's annoying when titles get changed when books and films cross the Atlantic. It's baffling why Fleshmarket Close became Fleshmarket Alley in the US; American readers should feel cheated! Fleshmarket Close is a real Edinburgh thoroughfare, right by the North Bridge and Waverley Station. Fleshmarket Alley isn't. Fleshmarket Close also has a symbolic meaning; at the core of this book is the exploitation of illegal immigrants.

It's been sitting on my shelf for years, waiting for me to catch up with some of the earlier Rebus books which I have never caught up with. So I plunged in. It's clear straight away that Rebus's world has become much more complicated than it was in the early books in the series. This is a rather sprawling piece show more involving a missing teenager, skeletons unearthed by pub renovations, a murdered Kurdish journalist, a rapist newly out of Barlinnie, a dodgy fringe estate, an even dodgier detention centre for asylum seekers and a suave, self-important immigration officer from London. All of which are somehow linked. It all feels a bit improbable on reflection, but it's a good, satisfying read all the same. show less