Knots and Crosses

I've never read any Ian Rankin before, but I liked this! I especially liked John Rebus - an old-school British smoking, drinking, book-loving, slightly unstable detective - and the way Edinburgh became a character in its own right, from the bright touristy areas right down to the sleaziest bars and most dangerous neighbourhoods. The story itself wasn't the height of excitement, but it was only the first in a very successful series so I think I'll read on, see where the characters go from here.

Knots and Crosses is the first book in Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus series, and it most certainly introduces John Rebus with a bang. Rebus is, in fact, presented as such a flawed character here that it is difficult to imagine a more unlikely main character for a series that is now some twenty-two books long and counting. Inspector Rebus is not a likely candidate to live long enough to collect his pension.

As Knots and Crosses opens, the 41-year-old Rebus is not a happy man. He is divorced and seldom sees his almost-twelve-year-old daughter anymore. He is a loner with almost zero friends who “resents having to play the part of a normal human animal” and he prefers it that way. He has been an Edinburgh cop for fifteen years but is show more really going nowhere because of his own behavior and because his fellow cops largely resent his presence on the force. The man is a cynic who has somehow retained his faith in God, although he tempers his belief with a sense of humor about it all. During one particularly boring briefing he thinks, “Perhaps if he stopped praying, God would take the hint and stop being such a bastard to one of his few believers on this near-godforesaken planet.” This is John Rebus – and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Already overworked and way behind on his present case-load, Rebus is not exactly thrilled to be reassigned to one of the biggest manhunts ever seen in Edinburgh. Little girls are disappearing from around the city without a trace only to have their strangled bodies turn up a few days later. At first, Rebus is just another grunt in the army frantically searching for the killer, but it seems that the killer has something special in mind for the inspector (something that every veteran reader of detective fiction will figure out long before it clicks with Rebus).

Bottom Line: The mystery part of Knots and Crosses is rather straightforward and reader-solvable but that is not really the point of this one. Instead, Rankin spends more than half the book fully fleshing out the John Rebus character. We learn who Rebus is today and all about how he got to be the way he is. We learn about his family history and his strained relationship with his only brother, a stage-hypnotist who followed in their father’s footsteps. We learn about Rebus’s military career and how that will impact the rest of the man’s life. We learn who John Rebus is, and by the end of the book, we know that we want to see a whole lot more of him. show less

A pleasant diversion, and Rebus has promise of being an interesting character, especially the cross of God-fearing believer and rules-be-damned rationalist detective. But not intriguing enough to pursue other installments, time better spent on Bernie Guenther or similar historical fiction.

I did enjoy the glimpses of Edinburgh, though, and Scottish turns of phrase. Favourite bit: "outwith", as in "He looked ... fearful all the same, for the very reason that it was outwith any physical control". [217] Earlier Rankin used it in the sense of beyond the boundaries, "outwith the city limits". Old Scots?

From Amazon:

Detective John Rebus: His city is being terrorized by a baffling series of murders...and he's tied to a maniac by an invisible knot of blood. Once John Rebus served in Britain's elite SAS. Now he's an Edinburgh cop who hides from his memories, misses promotions and ignores a series of crank letters. But as the ghoulish killings mount and the tabloid headlines scream, Rebus cannot stop the feverish shrieks from within his own mind. Because he isn't just one cop trying to catch a killer, he's the man who's got all the pieces to the puzzle.

My Thoughts:

This is the first of the Inspector John Rebus series by this very gifted author. Like all first time novels it has to find it's pace and we all know that the first effort show more sometimes doesn't show what the authors's capabilities are in their later works. Not true with Knots and Crosses. Ian Rankin's talents shine brightly from the very first page. He has a phenomenal way of describing Edinburgh so that you feel you are walking these ancient streets. He has created a intriguing character in John Rebus, someone with whom you empathize, someone you dislike and someone you pity all in a few hundred pages. I have read later books in this series and I can tell you they only get better and better. 4.5 stars for an excellent read. show less

This is the first of the Inspector Rebus series, and it felt like a get-to-know-you experience reading it. Rebus' horrifying military training comes back to haunt him, a criminal brother complicates the case, and his daughter I kidnapped. Not an easy time for the Inspector. Set in Scotland, the brogue of his audio characters added charm as well. I liked the multi-layer nature if the plot. I will definitely read the second in the series.

There are some mysteries you read because they are the only things available in the airport gift shop and you are desperate; then there are those that rise above the designation of “airplane book” and are more aptly considered “crime novels.” Ian Rankin’s books fall into the latter category.

I ordered this book from the library because I had won a couple of Ian Rankin books featuring Inspector Rebus, but I do have an obsessive need to start at the beginning of a series. Knots and Crosses is Book One of the Inspector Rebus series. (The series begins with Knots & Crosses published in 1987, and ends with Exit Music published in 2007.) I’m so glad I read this first book; it’s very good, and gives a lot of background on Rebus show more that one might be glad to have later on in the series. And how can you not feel favorably disposed toward a book with the epigraph “To Miranda, without whom nothing is worth finishing.”

John Rebus is a 41-year-old Detective Sergeant of the Great London Road police station in Edinburgh, Scotland. Formerly, he was one of the elite Special Air Service (a special forces regiment of the British Army) – a sort of Delta Force - but left after some kind of nervous breakdown, the circumstances surrounding which he has repressed. It has haunted his life however, and probably contributed to the break-up of his marriage. He sees his eleven-year-old daughter Samantha periodically, but interaction with her is awkward; in part, it is because she is a teenaged girl with very different interests than his own, and in part, it is because he is a loner, and a troubled man.

Rebus’s character is flawed in most interesting ways. To start with, he smokes and drinks to excess and tends to flout authority, but those traits are almost de rigueur these days for detectives in novels. But he has more unusual eccentricities as well: he has occasional bouts of kleptomania; flashbacks to his SAS training that can cause outbreaks of tears or even misdirected violent behavior; and an obsession with Christian guilt and the possibility of redemption.

As the story begins, someone is strangling little girls about Samantha’s age. The police are working around the clock to catch the killer before he strikes again.

Rebus, putting in very long hours, mulls over the case as he straggles home each night from the station, wondering where the killer might be hiding:

"Edinburgh slept on, as it had slept on for hundreds of years. There were ghosts in the cobbled alleys and on the twisting stairways of the Old Town tenements, but they were Enlightenment ghosts, articulate and deferential. They were not about to leap from the darkness with a length of twine ready in their hands.”

I love the depiction of Edinburgh as having Enlightenment ghosts.

Tension builds, and Rankin adds some very clever twists. The question of course is how many girls will die before Rebus and his colleagues can solve the mystery.

Evaluation: I did not anticipate the denouement at all, although I’m generally rather dense anyway when it comes to mysteries. But even had I done so, I still would have enjoyed the journey. This is not a book of "cheap thrills," but there is sufficient tension and interesting characterization to keep you reading until late at night.

Rankin is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, he won America's the Edgar Award for Resurrection Men. He has also been short-listed for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis.

I found him to be an intelligent writer; I definitely want to continue with the Inspector Rebus series! show less

This classic police procedural is a good introduction to Inspector John Rebus, a curmudgeonly Scot with, naturally, a tormented past and a messed up personal life. Rebus is investigating a murders of very young girls, most likely at the hands of a serial killer. He's also trying to patch up his relationship with his brother and recover from a failed marriage, while being haunted by events from his Army career. These seemingly disparate threads all come together and contribute to solving the crime.

This book is good, solid mystery fare. I was a little bothered by a massive clue that Rebus failed to take into consideration until quite late in the novel. Did the author think readers were naive enough to miss it, too, or are we supposed to show more be sitting on the sidelines shouting at Rebus, as I did? The reveal of "whodunnit" wasn't completely surprising either, but was still delivered with a twist. I liked Rebus well enough to continue reading this series. show less