Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
A few months ago I had a brief panic attack about ever having anything to read again. Which is very silly. But you know how it is when you have so many things to choose from, you feel like there’s no way to decide. I’d read in the newspaper about a TV series for people who love those old muddy BBC detective serials, and one of them based on the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin. I dutifully checked my local library and put myself on the list for the first book in the series.
When I finally got the notice via email that the book was available, I downloaded it, started reading, and finished that same evening. This is a quick, by the numbers little book. It’s got your detective with a dark past, his daughter, his new gal, his brother the stage hypnotist, an errant reporter, a bad guy, strangulation, a cheesy puzzle, and everything capped off at the end with some mayhem and bloodshed.
Here’s a book you can pick up at the airport on your way to somewhere you don’t want to go and, when you’re done with it, leave in the seat-back pocket for the next poor schmuck schlepping it from Hoboken to Billings. And if you like this sort of thing, if this is your bread and butter, or tea and crumpets or whatever, there’s nineteen more books in the series.
Go hang out in the means streets of Edinburgh and help Detective Sergeant Rebus catch the bad guys, deal with his own dark history, and woo the pretty (but smart and tough) gal. Or don’t. There are a whole heck of a lot of books out there to devour.