Perhaps a mite dated now, so it reads as a bit of a blast from the past at this point (or a reminder that history rhymes, anyway). But a fast-paced and very enjoyable tale nonetheless. ( )

A very early Rankin before he'd found his "voice" and sadly way below the standard of his Rebus books. My advice, if you enjoy Rebus, ignore this book! ( )

In 1990, when Westwind was first published, Ian Rankin had written only one of his now famous John Rebus novels and was working on the second. The book didn’t exactly make much of a splash. As Rankin puts it in his introduction to this 2019 edition, it may have been published but, “Not that anyone noticed. There was one hardcover printing, one paperback, and one in large format for readers with limited sight. It didn’t sell in the USA and no foreign-language publisher wanted it.” Even Rankin could not “muster” much enthusiasm for the book. Then, according to Rankin, someone on Twitter convinced him that the book was not as bad as he remembered it to be. After re-reading the novel for himself, Rankin realized that Westwind paralleled much of today’s geopolitical situation and, more importantly, that he had enjoyed reading it.

Thus was born last year’s slightly revised version of Westwind, of which Rankin says:

“I’ve given the original printed text a polish, hopefully ridding it of those flawed sentences and scenes. A few words have been added here and there, while others have been removed or altered, but it is essentially the same book that it always was, just thirty years older and a little wiser…”

Westwind is set in an alternate reality 1990 in which the US has decided to remove its troops from Europe under the assumption that it’s time for Europe to take responsibility for its own defense. Some British citizens are thrilled to see the backside of American troops; others fear what might happen in their absence. As the end-date for the removal of the last troops approaches, tensions are high and protesters on both sides of the issue are determined to be heard. Communication satellites are circling the earth making life better for everyone – but that’s not all they are doing. Everyone and everything that happens on the ground is fair game. There are no more secrets.

In the midst of all the turmoil, an American space shuttle crashes upon its return to Earth, killing all of the American astronauts on board. The only survivor is the British astronaut who was only on the flight in the first place as a courtesy to the key American ally. Now the question is why rescuers had to pry the fingers of one of the dead Americans from around the Brit’s neck before they could remove him from the shuttle remains. Meanwhile, at a British ground-control center, Martin Hepton, whose job it is to monitor one of the most advanced communication satellites in Western Europe watches helplessly as the center completely loses contact with it. The satellite is unresponsive to ground-control operators for almost four minutes and only resumes contact just when everyone feared it was lost forever.

Nothing like this has ever happened before, and one of Hepton’s colleague’s has reason to believe that it was not an accident this time either. Unfortunately, the man only has time to hint to Hepton that something is very strange before he disappears. Now, Hepton, believing that his friend is in trouble, wants answer – and he starts asking the kind of questions that a whole lot of very dangerous people don’t want him asking.

Bottom Line: Westwind is an enjoyable spy-thriller right up until it reaches its final climax. The characters are likable, and it’s easy to root for them as they try to figure out what is going on before they are all killed by super-spies and assassins from around the world. The book’s big flaw is how much it begins to resemble a James Bond movie as it approaches the big-reveal part of its story. Just as in a typical Bond script, as soon as the villains seem to have custody of all the good guys, they can’t resist boasting in detail about their mad plot and how it all works. Rather than eliminating their rivals immediately, they prefer to explain what will happen (in great detail, mind you) after they kill them. The unfortunate effect of this approach is that it pushes Westwind from far-fetched thriller category into cartoon category, making it not so thrilling after all. ( )

This is a re-issue of a early Rankin novel first published in 1990. Not Rankin's best work but worth the read, nonetheless. Lots of references to 1980s/1990s cutting edge technology that almost seems quaint at this publication date , thirty years later. Book centres around the UK - USA espionage relationships in the early years of spy satellite politics. ( )

I spent many years as a tax inspector so I have to acknowledge that a fair degree of cycnism may have come to contaminate my view of the world. This came to the fore when I read about Ian Rankin’s latest book which was a slight reworking of an earlier novel, published without conspicuous success nearly thirty years ago. That inner tax inspector was trying, most insistently, to suggest that if an early book from a notable writer has sunk, the most likely reason was that he had not yet found his midseason form, and it simply wasn’t much good.

Would that I had listened to that cynical inner voice. Instead, however, I succumbed to some sort of auto-Cassandra syndrome, and failed to heed my own prophecy, eagerly snatching up a copy when I spotted it on the shelves on my last visit to Daunt Books in Marylebone. Well that is twenty pounds that I am never going to get back, and I can now only hope that I have learned a salutary lesson and don’t make the same mistake the next time an established and admired author tries to resurrect a former literary mishap.

I find it difficult to believe that a writer whom I have respected for the gritty reality of his characters and the tightness of his plotting could have been responsible for such a weak book, even at the beginning of his career. This book falls between several stools. It was an attempt, as Rankin explains in the foreword, to break into the high-tech thriller market, but unfortunately it simply doesn’t work. This seems as far from Ian Rankin’s recent works as Ian Fleming’s James bond books are from the novels of John le Carré.

I was left feeling that, however deep and jaundiced my cynicism might have become, it can’t compete with that of the publishers (and perhaps even Mr Rankin himself) in seeing the opportunity of the Christmas-driven surge in book buying and the lure of an established name as a way of recycling something that would far more worthily have been left festering in a literary landfill. ( )