The Hanging Garden by
Ian Rankin
pbk out February 99
(Orion)
at £5.99
At the opening of this novel, DI Rebus has the job of tracking a suspected war criminal, and he's not getting very far with it. When a Bosnian prostitute, working in Edinburgh, seeks his protection, Rebus is drawn into the dispute between Big Ger Cafferty's gang and the upstart Tommy Telford.
This is not as ambitious a novel as the previous Black and Blue, but Rankin is now writing with such style and confidence that it hardly matters.
The main problem with this series is that Rebus is the only really rounded character in the landscape. Perhaps Edinburgh itself qualifies as a character, and, if it does, it is certainly very much there. But the rest of the figures are slight. Rebus' wife Rhona, his daughter Sammy, and his boss Chief Superintendent ""Farmer"" Watson are only given ""walk-on"" parts. The villains, including Big Ger Cafferty, are vague and shadowy, and, really, without Rebus and his personal angst, the novels would have little to hold them together.
All the more reason, then, to read them. Because Rebus is a truly realised character, not just an eccentric bunch of contradictions. And more, because as well as being an outstanding creation, he also carries the structure of each book single handedly. To be fair, though, in The Hanging Garden, he is helped considerably by the intelligent and vulnerable characterisation of Candice, the Bosnian prostitute.
Another good read, then, from Rankin. He never fails to pin you back in the chair, turning the pages, turning the pages.
(
John Baker
- author of the Sam Turner mysteries and one of Britain's most highly acclaimed writers)
The Hanging Garden by
Ian Rankin