“Seems to me,” he eventually offered, “we’re all up to something, Mike—even you. That means there’s going to be winners and losers. Want to take a bet which side I’ll be on?”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (JAN 29, 2010)

The title of Ian Rankin’s latest stand-alone crime thriller is Doors Open, and this title has both literal and figurative meanings. Figuratively the title refers to the “open doors” of opportunities and decisions. “Open doors” are those moments when we glimpse the possibilities of choice and a different sort of future, and during those moments we decide whether or not to pass through that open door, or just walk away….

The idea of missed opportunities and different futures certainly rankles the “three musketeers”–a nickname given to three male friends by Laura Stanton, an attractive Edinburgh art dealer. The three men, who hang out at art auctions together, at first glance seem to make unlikely friends. There’s Robert Gissing, a professor on the verge of retirement, middle-aged bank executive Allan Cruickshank who’s going through an expensive divorce, and millionaire Mike Mackenzie. Of the three men, only Mackenzie can afford to buy paintings at auctions, but the painting he really wants isn’t for sale.

One day, Gissing suggests a plan; as a respected art critic, with access to galleries and their vaults, Gissing proposes a bold plan to rob a vault that stores priceless overstock–the paintings Edinburgh galleries don’t display due to space considerations. Gissing, who’s obviously given this a great deal of thought, proposes to raid the overstock vaults of the National Galleries during Doors Open day–a period when security is somewhat relaxed as the public descends for the free-admission access to Edinburgh landmarks that either normally charge for entrance or are usually closed to the public.

While Gissing’s plan is well-thought through, so much can potentially go wrong, and at first while the more cautious Cruickshank is wary of the idea, Mackenzie leaps at the chance to steal the painting he covets. Rankin builds a credible story by depicting characters who see the heist as an opportunity to correct their lives. Gissing, given to rants about those hoarders and collectors who buy art just to hide it away in their private collections, hypocritically seeks to do the very same thing; Cruickshank has reached a dead-end in his personal life and in his career, and he’s secretly thrilled to think he could steal two paintings that even his bank cannot afford to buy, and Mackenzie, who becomes a driving force in the heist, begins to have delusions of himself as a tough guy.

Rankin’s psychological insights into the minds of his characters add a great deal to this crime tale, and these insights certainly go a long way towards explaining why someone like Mackenzie–a man who can afford to buy almost everything he wants–would risk getting his hands dirty. Mackenzie is well-matched with his polar opposite, Cruickshank, and it’s clear that while the bank executive wouldn’t go through that “open door” if the decision is left up to him, he’s dragged along into this mess by his personal failures, Gissing’s confidence and also deeply hidden envy of the much wealthier Mackenzie.

Mackenzie is the main character here. Fate causes him to run into an old schoolmate, Chib Calloway, an Edinburgh crime boss whose power is waning. Calloway sees the heist as a segue into greater criminal opportunities, and some of the novel’s best scenes concern Mackenzie impressing Cruickshank with this seemingly practiced criminal actions, while conversely Calloway understands that Mackenzie is, essentially, an amateur.

Scottish author Ian Rankin is probably best known for his Rebus novels, and 2009 brought the publication of Exit Music–a novel that announced the end of Rebus’s less-than-stellar career. Actually I have hopes that Rebus will return in retirement, but it’s good to read Rankin’s stand-alone thriller. While we don’t have time to get fond of the characters in this heist tale, Rankin doesn’t spend all the pages on the chills and thrills of plotting a robbery. He also examines questions of boredom, ownership, and how the desire to impress others has an addictive, toxic lure.

Bibliography:

Inspector Rebus Mysteries:

• Knots and Crosses (1987)
• Hide and Seek (1991)
• Wolfman (1992) (published as Tooth and Nail in US)
• A Good Hanging (1992)
• Strip Jack (1992)
• The Black Book (1993)
• Mortal Causes (1994)
• Let It Bleed (1996)
• Black and Blue (1997)
• The Hanging Garden (1998)
• Dead Souls (1999)
• Set in Darkness (2000)
• The Falls (2001)
• Resurrection Men (2002, February 2003 in US)
• A Question of Blood (February 2004)
• Fleshmarket Alley (February 2005)
• The Naming of the Dead (April 2007)
• Exit Music (September 2008)

Short Story Collections:

• A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992) (Inspector Rebus stories )
• Hebert In Motion and other stories (1997)
• Death is not the End : a novella (Inspector Rebus) (1998)
• Rebus: The Early Years (1999)
• Rebus: The St. Leonard’s Years (2001)
• Beggars Banquet: Stories (2002) (21 stories, 7 include Inspector Rebus)

Other Novels:

• The Flood (1986)
• Watchman (1991)
• Death is Not The End (1998, 2000 in US)
• Doors Open (January 2010)
• The Complaints (March 2011)

Originally written as Jack Harvey:

• Witch Hunt (1993) *
• Bleeding Hearts (1994) *
• Blood Hunt (1995) *

*All three thrillers are published in The Jack Harvey Novels (2000)

“Sincerity is everything–when you can fake that, the sky’s the limit.”

Book Review:

Review by Guy Savage (OCT 5, 2009)

There are so many novels on the market with new titles piling into bookshops every month, and sometimes it’s difficult to pick the substantive novels from the pap. Perhaps this is especially true in the crime genre which can all too often boil down to formulaic plots in which the crime and its solution go through the necessary, tired and obligatory motions. Here’s a public confession: until September 2009, I’d never read any novels by Scottish author Ian Rankin, but after I watched three films in the Rebus series, I decided it was about time I tried at least one of his novels.

With as many books as I read a year combined with my weakness for crime novels, you’d think I would have read Rankin before. I’d heard of him, certainly, and I’d passed by his books in bookshops without a shred of curiosity. Familiar with his name, I never felt the urge to read one of his books. Is there a point at which authors have such widespread name recognition that they no longer attract new readers? Or was I just stubbornly refusing to “try” a novelist who seemed popular and already has legions of fans? And this brings me to Exit Music. Published in 2007, according to Rankin’s website  it’s the eighteenth novel in the Rebus series which started twenty years earlier in 1987.

It was a bittersweet experience for me to read Exit Music. Bitter because it may well be the last novel in the Rebus series–Rebus is after all on the eve of retirement in the novel. The sweet part of the experience comes from eyeing the stack of Rankin books now sitting on my shelf. Yes, I bought all the others.

If you’ve read Rankin before, then you know what to expect. But if you’re new to Rankin, with Detective Inspector Rebus in charge, forget the warm and fuzzy stuff. If you like your crime fiction dark, if you don’t need a hero, and if you enjoy the crime novels of Val McDermid, then there’s a good chance that you will enjoy Ian Rankin.

In Exit Music, with just ten days left to Rebus’s retirement, a countdown is taking place. Rebus is beginning to wonder if there’s life outside the police force, and his partner, Siobhan Clarke is in the awkward position of planning life without her mentor. Meanwhile Rebus’s departure will mean promotions in the department, so there’s a sense of competition and arse-licking afoot. While two police officers vie for the soon-to-be-open spot, a young newcomer, Todd Goodyear, appears to catch Siobhan’s fancy. Goodyear is methodical and has an interesting past. He might be a good prospect as Siobhan’s new sidekick if he could just stop his bible-quoting habit.

The book begins with the discovery of a dead body. The victim, Alexander Todorov, a prominent Russian dissident and poet, is found viciously beaten to death shortly after leaving a poetry reading. At first it looks like a mugging, but that doesn’t quite fit, and as Rebus and Siobhan investigate, they slowly begin delving into some very shady deals involving Russian gangsters and Rebus’s old nemesis, the Scottish mobster, ruthless Gerald Cafferty.

Exit Music is set in 2006, and while Rebus and Siobhan search for a killer in Edinburgh, Alexander Litvinenko is dying from polonium poisoning in London. It’s enough to make anyone investigating Russians more than a little nervous, and the shadow of Litvinenko’s death stretches all the way to Scotland.

Even though I hadn’t read the other novels in the Rebus series, this didn’t interfere with the sheer enjoyment of Exit Music. I ploughed through over 400 pages in the course of two days. Rebus is a wonderful protagonist, and the fact that he’s facing retirement just raises the stakes. Always one to test the rules, in a couple of scenes, he pushes the envelope and doesn’t bother to hide his contempt for some of those involved in the muck surrounding Todorov’s death. With the finish line in front of him, his fuck-it attitude takes over as he steps on many toes–witnesses, government officials, his superiors, well Rebus’s barely held-in-check contempt slides into frustration and open hostility. An early question from Siobhan to Rebus echoes throughout the novel:

“Does the suit of armor come off when you get the gold watch?”

And after all that, I’ve just got one word to say: fantastic.

AMAZON READER RATING:	from 26 readers
PUBLISHER:	Little, Brown and Company; First US Edition edition (September 17, 2008)
REVIEWER:	Guy Savage
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK?	YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE:	Ian Rankin
EXTRAS:	Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION:	Read  our reviews of other Ian Rankin novels: Doors Open The Naming of the Dead Fleshmarket Alley Resurrection Men Witch Hunt (not part of this series) Another Scottish author: Val McDermid

Bibliography:

Inspector Rebus Mysteries:

• Knots and Crosses (1987)
• Hide and Seek (1991)
• Wolfman (1992) (published as Tooth and Nail in US)
• A Good Hanging (1992)
• Strip Jack (1992)
• The Black Book (1993)
• Mortal Causes (1994)
• Let It Bleed (1996)
• Black and Blue (1997)
• The Hanging Garden (1998)
• Dead Souls (1999)
• Set in Darkness (2000)
• The Falls (2001)
• Resurrection Men (2002, February 2003 in US)
• A Question of Blood (February 2004)
• Fleshmarket Alley (February 2005)
• The Naming of the Dead (April 2007)
• Exit Music (September 2008)

Short Story Collections:

• A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992) (Inspector Rebus stories )
• Hebert In Motion and other stories (1997)
• Death is not the End : a novella (Inspector Rebus) (1998)
• Rebus: The Early Years (1999)
• Rebus: The St. Leonard’s Years (2001)
• Beggars Banquet: Stories (2002) (21 stories, 7 include Inspector Rebus)

Other Novels:

• The Flood (1986)
• Watchman (1991)
• Death is Not The End (1998, 2000 in US)
• Doors Open (January 2010)
• The Complaints (March 2011)

Originally written as Jack Harvey:

• Witch Hunt (1993) *
• Bleeding Hearts (1994) *
• Blood Hunt (1995) *

*All three thrillers are published in The Jack Harvey Novels (2000)