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Inspector Rebus #8
L'Ombre du tueur
Muté dans "un vrai trou à rats" d'Edimbourg, l'inspecteur Rebus est chargé d'interroger un individu qui s'accuse d'être Johnny Bible, un tueur en série qui a assassiné trois femmes en s'efforçant de copier le modus operandi de Bible John, un meurtrier qui sema la terreur en Écosse au début des années soixante-dix. Rebus, qui connaît bien l'affaire Bible John, ne croit pas un mot de cette confession. Une trentaine d'années plus tôt, alors qu'il débutait, il a joué un rôle important dans la condamnation d'un certain Spaven, chez qui furent retrouvées des affaires appartenant à l'une des victimes. Incarcéré, l'homme écrivit un livre pour clamer son innocence puis se suicida. Une équipe de la télévision qui effectue une contre-enquête sur cette troublante affaire, oblige la police à rouvrir le dossier. Rebus est sur la sellette : n'aurait-il pas à l'époque fait un témoignage de complaisance pour couvrir son collègue ? Pendant ce temps, à la suite d'un nouveau meurtre, Rebus va musarder à Aberdeen, dans les coulisses d'une compagnie pétrolière et au cœur des boîtes de nuit de la ville où la mafia de Glasgow semble avoir trouvé un nouveau débouché. Pendant ce temps, le vieux Bible John, qui n'apprécie guère qu'on le copie, se met sur la piste de son imitateur.
Dague d'or du meilleur roman de l'année, L'Ombre du tueur possède une intrigue bâtie avec finesse et rigueur au sein de laquelle tous les personnages, principaux ou secondaires, respirent la vraisemblance. Servie par de savoureux dialogues, cette balade en Écosse se révèle instructive et passionnante. --Claude Mesplède
642 pages, Pocket Book
First published January 1, 1997
1129 people are currently reading
5020 people want to read
About the author
Ian Rankin
424 books6,543 followersAKA Jack Harvey.
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987; the Rebus books are now translated into 22 languages and are bestsellers on several continents.
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow. He is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, and he received two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, and Edinburgh.
A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ianrankin
Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987; the Rebus books are now translated into 22 languages and are bestsellers on several continents.
Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow. He is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award, and he received two Dagger Awards for the year's best short story and the Gold Dagger for Fiction. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews, and Edinburgh.
A contributor to BBC2's Newsnight Review, he also presented his own TV series, Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts, on Channel 4 in 2002. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/ianrankin
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 751 reviews
June 30, 2024
I think the reason I like the Rebus novels so much stems from the fact that they have so much more in common with American noir fiction than they do with the classic British whodunit. Rankin’s frontman is a hardened (SAS trained), drinking man with sometimes dubious scruples but one who cares passionately about getting the job done - which for him entails tracking down the bad men. There’s a lot of Rankin in Rebus: they drink in the same pub (Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar), their music tastes seldom stray from progressive rock and their working class upbringing in Fife, just across the water from Edinburgh, has shaped both into the slightly cynical but sharp witted men they are.
Rankin writes seriously about modern Scotland and has interesting views on topical (at the time of writing) events. Here, he points his pen at Scottish oil, but in other books he’s covered homelessness and the plight of asylum seekers amongst a raft of topics he’s turned his attention to. The city of Edinburgh is also a star of these books; seen by many as a posh and civilised enclave where crime barely registers, Rankin shows us the underbelly of the city. As Glaswegians like to say about their Eastern neighbours it’s aw fur coats an nae knickers.
As the book opens, we see that John Rebus is in purgatory. He’s upset his bosses again and has been posted to Craigmillar station, the toughest in the city. Not that Rebus is likely to be tied down for any length of time – its not long before he’s wondering off on his own, well away from the public housing hotspots of this impoverished corner of the city. In fact, he travels far and wide as discovery of a tortured body leads to links with the oil industry and, in a secondary plotline, he is on the trail of an imitator of the real-life Glasgow murderer ‘Bible John’. And just to throw another problem into the mix, John is being investigated for his part in an arrest and subsequent conviction some years before. Time to get on the road and make yourself scarce, John.
This book won Rankin the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year (1997), awarded by the Crime Writers Association. It’s big and quite complex, and the scale is vast: lone wolf Rebus finds himself in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Shetland, and the oil fields of the North Sea. Unpleasant characters abound. It’s clever and wry and sometimes laugh out loud funny. It’s all of this and more, but for me the beauty of the book is in the way the story is told more so than the in story itself: Rankin is a supreme wordsmith and a truly gifted literary writer. Add to this the fact that nobody writes dialogue better than he, and you just know you’re going to have fun when you pick up a Rebus novel. Is he the finest crime writer of his generation? Maybe. I’d personally vote for James Lee Burke, but I think Rankin comes a very close second.
Rankin writes seriously about modern Scotland and has interesting views on topical (at the time of writing) events. Here, he points his pen at Scottish oil, but in other books he’s covered homelessness and the plight of asylum seekers amongst a raft of topics he’s turned his attention to. The city of Edinburgh is also a star of these books; seen by many as a posh and civilised enclave where crime barely registers, Rankin shows us the underbelly of the city. As Glaswegians like to say about their Eastern neighbours it’s aw fur coats an nae knickers.
As the book opens, we see that John Rebus is in purgatory. He’s upset his bosses again and has been posted to Craigmillar station, the toughest in the city. Not that Rebus is likely to be tied down for any length of time – its not long before he’s wondering off on his own, well away from the public housing hotspots of this impoverished corner of the city. In fact, he travels far and wide as discovery of a tortured body leads to links with the oil industry and, in a secondary plotline, he is on the trail of an imitator of the real-life Glasgow murderer ‘Bible John’. And just to throw another problem into the mix, John is being investigated for his part in an arrest and subsequent conviction some years before. Time to get on the road and make yourself scarce, John.
This book won Rankin the Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year (1997), awarded by the Crime Writers Association. It’s big and quite complex, and the scale is vast: lone wolf Rebus finds himself in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Shetland, and the oil fields of the North Sea. Unpleasant characters abound. It’s clever and wry and sometimes laugh out loud funny. It’s all of this and more, but for me the beauty of the book is in the way the story is told more so than the in story itself: Rankin is a supreme wordsmith and a truly gifted literary writer. Add to this the fact that nobody writes dialogue better than he, and you just know you’re going to have fun when you pick up a Rebus novel. Is he the finest crime writer of his generation? Maybe. I’d personally vote for James Lee Burke, but I think Rankin comes a very close second.
September 6, 2023
“Black & Blue” es la octava entrega del inspector Rebus, y fue publicada en 1997. Ya ha llovido.
Está considerada una de las mejores de la serie, y creo firmemente que puede serlo. En esta entrega Rebus no ha descendido aún a los infiernos de sus demonios interiores, pero casi. Sigue en estado auto destructivo, y los casos que lleva tampoco le ayudan a mejorar su humor. Aquí se las tendrá que ver con la industria petrolera del Mar del Norte, y por lo tanto tendrá que viajar a Aberdeen, donde transcurre buena parte de la trama. Y también seguirá la pista de Johnny Bible, que pretende emular los crímenes de su antecesor casi treinta años atrás.
Todo en una trama muy intrincada, que puede hacer que te pierdas un poco si no estás atento a la lectura, la cual no es de las más fáciles (sobre todo, si la lees en VO), pero sí de las más interesantes.
4 🌞🌞🌞🌞
Está considerada una de las mejores de la serie, y creo firmemente que puede serlo. En esta entrega Rebus no ha descendido aún a los infiernos de sus demonios interiores, pero casi. Sigue en estado auto destructivo, y los casos que lleva tampoco le ayudan a mejorar su humor. Aquí se las tendrá que ver con la industria petrolera del Mar del Norte, y por lo tanto tendrá que viajar a Aberdeen, donde transcurre buena parte de la trama. Y también seguirá la pista de Johnny Bible, que pretende emular los crímenes de su antecesor casi treinta años atrás.
Todo en una trama muy intrincada, que puede hacer que te pierdas un poco si no estás atento a la lectura, la cual no es de las más fáciles (sobre todo, si la lees en VO), pero sí de las más interesantes.
4 🌞🌞🌞🌞
November 3, 2018
Now this is how you write a really good crime novel. Okay so the main character is a stereotypical alcoholic, antisocial cop but it is what Ian Rankin does with him that counts. Rebus has developed over eight books into a man who does everything he can to catch his criminal frequently regardless of what his superiors might want or desire.
Best of all, the book is constant action. As I assume happens in real life police work, Rebus does not pursue just one crime for the whole book. He is busy on several different fronts and gets to travel the length and breadth of Scotland, even managing a couple of helicopter rides to the oil rigs off shore. I really enjoyed his relationships within each of the different police stations - he is definitely not one of the crowd!
I found Black and Blue very difficult to put down and enjoyed every page of it.
Best of all, the book is constant action. As I assume happens in real life police work, Rebus does not pursue just one crime for the whole book. He is busy on several different fronts and gets to travel the length and breadth of Scotland, even managing a couple of helicopter rides to the oil rigs off shore. I really enjoyed his relationships within each of the different police stations - he is definitely not one of the crowd!
I found Black and Blue very difficult to put down and enjoyed every page of it.
July 5, 2019
John Rebus gets in your face... and hits you hard. With drive, determination, emotion, stubborn attitude. He is a liar and an honest person at the same time. He takes life hard, rather a bleak and lonely outlook, has trouble with relationships, love, alcohol. Always gets into trouble with his superiors. But he's loyal to his colleagues, and a straight guy. And he's a damn good detective. I'm not by definition a crime book reader, but the Rebus' books I like. Story lines and characters are always solid. Hard reality, great scene description of the darkest corners of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen. I was in Glasgow when I started reading this book and even recognized some of the spots (lets say the lesser dark ones :-) ). Most of this book plays in Aberdeen and the oil scene. I've said it again and will say it again, I love my Rebus. Working my way steadily through the Rebus series and hope it doesn't stop for a while yet.
July 11, 2019
“Black & Blue” es la octava entrega del inspector Rebus, y fue publicada en 1997. Ya ha llovido.
Está considerada una de las mejores de la serie, y creo firmemente que puede serlo. En esta entrega Rebus no ha descendido aún a los infiernos de sus demonios interiores, pero casi. Sigue en estado auto destructivo, y los casos que lleva tampoco le ayudan a mejorar su humor. Aquí se las tendrá que ver con la industria petrolera del Mar del Norte, y por lo tanto tendrá que viajar a Aberdeen, donde transcurre buena parte de la trama. Y también seguirá la pista de Johnny Bible, que pretende emular los crímenes de su antecesor casi treinta años atrás.
Todo en una trama muy intrincada, que puede hacer que te pierdas un poco si no estás atento a la lectura, la cual no es de las más fáciles (sobre todo, si la lees en VO), pero sí de las más interesantes.
En mi próximo viaje a Edimburgo haré una parada en su bar favorito (The Oxford bar), en Young Street, donde dicen que el propio autor es habitual entre los locales. También Sean Connery suele dejarse caer de vez en cuando, aunque suele parar poco por esta bella ciudad que le vio nacer.
Está considerada una de las mejores de la serie, y creo firmemente que puede serlo. En esta entrega Rebus no ha descendido aún a los infiernos de sus demonios interiores, pero casi. Sigue en estado auto destructivo, y los casos que lleva tampoco le ayudan a mejorar su humor. Aquí se las tendrá que ver con la industria petrolera del Mar del Norte, y por lo tanto tendrá que viajar a Aberdeen, donde transcurre buena parte de la trama. Y también seguirá la pista de Johnny Bible, que pretende emular los crímenes de su antecesor casi treinta años atrás.
Todo en una trama muy intrincada, que puede hacer que te pierdas un poco si no estás atento a la lectura, la cual no es de las más fáciles (sobre todo, si la lees en VO), pero sí de las más interesantes.
En mi próximo viaje a Edimburgo haré una parada en su bar favorito (The Oxford bar), en Young Street, donde dicen que el propio autor es habitual entre los locales. También Sean Connery suele dejarse caer de vez en cuando, aunque suele parar poco por esta bella ciudad que le vio nacer.
June 23, 2017
It has been a while since I have indulged in some Ian Rankin crime fiction and this book has reminded me why I classify his books as pure escapism!
Despite being first published twenty years ago, this book has a lasting relevancy and an enjoyment that can be garnered from a contemporary reader used to, perhaps, a more psychological twist to their crime fiction.
Some aspects of this novel seemed particularly tried, like the gruff, alcoholic detective whose eyes we see this world through, but, for me, this only added to the enjoyment of the piece. Certain parts of this adhered to what was expected from a 90's crime novel, but there were still enough thrills and chills to keep me entertained.
For if the characters felt a little stereotypical, the plot most certainly was not. The lone wolf Detective Rebus traverses the cities of Scotland as a myriad of murder mysteries haunt his psyche and overload his workload. A returned serial killer from the presumed dead. A possible gang-related killing. A police force with perhaps more than one source of income. And a teneous urban link that connects them all.
I loved how this novel acted as a running social commentary of its time (the late 90s) and the setting (urban Scotland), and it was fascinating to me how different life was then, despite the mere twenty year gap between the setting and now. The reader can learn much on the way politics, societal attitudes and technology has altered from this book, despite that not being its official usage.
Despite being first published twenty years ago, this book has a lasting relevancy and an enjoyment that can be garnered from a contemporary reader used to, perhaps, a more psychological twist to their crime fiction.
Some aspects of this novel seemed particularly tried, like the gruff, alcoholic detective whose eyes we see this world through, but, for me, this only added to the enjoyment of the piece. Certain parts of this adhered to what was expected from a 90's crime novel, but there were still enough thrills and chills to keep me entertained.
For if the characters felt a little stereotypical, the plot most certainly was not. The lone wolf Detective Rebus traverses the cities of Scotland as a myriad of murder mysteries haunt his psyche and overload his workload. A returned serial killer from the presumed dead. A possible gang-related killing. A police force with perhaps more than one source of income. And a teneous urban link that connects them all.
I loved how this novel acted as a running social commentary of its time (the late 90s) and the setting (urban Scotland), and it was fascinating to me how different life was then, despite the mere twenty year gap between the setting and now. The reader can learn much on the way politics, societal attitudes and technology has altered from this book, despite that not being its official usage.
August 13, 2015
What would series crime fiction be like without the clunky crap? I've wondered more than once in the last 18 months, as I started reading more of the genre than I had since my teens.
Answer: It would be like an Ian Rankin.
For over twenty years, I'd assumed to some extent that his books must be overhyped and trashy, as a lot of thrillers are. A ten year old list of 100 best Scottish books - which included Black & Blue - at least gave me pause for thought and a vague intention to get round to him one day.
Rankin books are so ubiquitous that it seemed ridiculous to seek them out actively: on some level I was waiting for them to fall into my lap at the right time. (The same attitude is responsible for my not having read more of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. And it actually worked with Discworld books, when at university I knew numerous Pratchett fans.) I found this copy of Black & Blue - the only Rebus I'd have considered reading out of series order, and complete with the 90s/early 2000s cover, which to my mind is what Ian Rankin novels should look like - in holiday accommodation, when, as I'd read a few Scandis reportedly influenced by Rankin, not having read him was starting to feel like a gap in my knowledge.
In fairness, I've not read any Martin Beck or Wallander, the other major influences on recent Nordic thrillers. Nor was John Rebus the first drunk maverick loner detective. But - and especially by comparison with all the later ones - I want to give him the Kellogg's slogan: Original and best. And this is the eighth book in the series: by that stage most series authors have a disintegrating dead horse on their hands, yet Rankin was starting to peak. The only books I've read comparable to this are a few John le Carrés: both use genre tropes, but those tropes are more alive, more entertaining and made more original in the hands of these authors than when churned out by the rest of the hacks.
In the intricacy (but never inaccessibility) of its intertwining plot strands, Black & Blue beats Booker-nominated thriller doorstop The Kills hands down. Makes it look so easy. And makes it look like other crime writers are padding out their novels with long scenes of moodily starting into space: this is 500 pages and Rebus is rarely doing that for more than a couple of sentences. There's too much happening to waste page-time on that, regardless of how the character's feeling (and that is conveyed succinctly). The kidnapped guy who launched himself out of a window in one of Edinburgh's most run down estates; the Glasgow gangsters; the oil-slick corrupt goings on in Aberdeen; the internal investigation into an old case; a stint giving up the booze; serial killers old and new. (And fictional and real. Bible John didn't hang over the West of Scotland to quite the extent Hindley and Brady do over north-west England, but there's something of that. Especially if you've met people of the victims' generation. Taking the narrative viewpoint - here close third - of a real person and making it believeable is by no means easy - I saw a lacklustre attempt to narrate as Greta Garbo in a short story last week - but Rankin pulls it off and makes it utterly convincing.)
Fictional maverick cops are frequently in trouble with their bosses, but it's very rare to see one be forced to empathise so closely with suspects, to have his (greatly valued, solitary) boundaries invaded as does Rebus here - and it's the quality of writing that does that over and above mere storyboarding. Many times, Rankin throws new light on events typical of crime fiction.
We're obviously in a nearby parallel universe of Thrillerland, but it all works, it never seems contrived, rather it's impressive.
Covering three major Scottish cities, Shetland, and some lands between, Black and Blue is also a panorama of the country and its local cultures. And of a point in time: areas in the process of regenerating with flash new buildings, on a cusp between old and new centuries, tired old Tory rule and the brink of New Labour and the Scottish Parliament; the topicality of the first plans for oil rig decommissioning; very occasional use of email and cellphones by a couple of characters, but a lot of scrabbling for payphone coins and calling your home answering machine - and the space and silence and escape you could still get just before everyone had portable digital thingies. It's a fairly androcentric world/police force - recalls what a novelty Prime Suspect once was - whilst Rebus and some, though certainly not all, of his colleagues are non-sexist, without being unconvincingly right-on. Sometimes the sense of the era is in the little details, like the use of the word New Age, about merely enjoying the view of a sky, or about travellers - and the spot-on choice of having a left-wing guy in his twenties carry around a copy of Iain Banks' Whit in his rucksack. It knows it's only half zeitgeisty, because Rebus is older than his author, and both his job and he as a personality are somewhat detached from the buzz; and Rebus sometimes regrets having missed pop cultural moments during his years in the army, but these lacunae make him part of his own small subculture with others like himself.
Rebus may be a recognisable archetype, yet he's drawn so very well (unlike the other lazy, blurry impressions of his sort elsewhere) that he feels more real than the characters in most books I've read this year. There's a certain kind of grumpy, dark mood that I feel can only be adequately externalised by sulking about with drink and cigarette, most probably in a pub, and Rebus rapidly became one of the characters I'm very happy to have do this for vicariously. I'll probably need more of him in the coming months. Just as well there are over 20 books. It now seems idiotic to have shunned this series for so long - but it does mean there's a feast to enjoy. Even among my favourites and 5-star books, I can't remember previously understanding why anyone would say "I envy people who haven't read X yet, and still have the pleasure of discovering it" - but over the last few days, whilst not everything has been easy, when reading Black and Blue, I often felt almost as I have done on favourite social occasions: savouring a peak moment and feeling nostalgia even whilst it's still happening.
Answer: It would be like an Ian Rankin.
For over twenty years, I'd assumed to some extent that his books must be overhyped and trashy, as a lot of thrillers are. A ten year old list of 100 best Scottish books - which included Black & Blue - at least gave me pause for thought and a vague intention to get round to him one day.
Rankin books are so ubiquitous that it seemed ridiculous to seek them out actively: on some level I was waiting for them to fall into my lap at the right time. (The same attitude is responsible for my not having read more of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series. And it actually worked with Discworld books, when at university I knew numerous Pratchett fans.) I found this copy of Black & Blue - the only Rebus I'd have considered reading out of series order, and complete with the 90s/early 2000s cover, which to my mind is what Ian Rankin novels should look like - in holiday accommodation, when, as I'd read a few Scandis reportedly influenced by Rankin, not having read him was starting to feel like a gap in my knowledge.
In fairness, I've not read any Martin Beck or Wallander, the other major influences on recent Nordic thrillers. Nor was John Rebus the first drunk maverick loner detective. But - and especially by comparison with all the later ones - I want to give him the Kellogg's slogan: Original and best. And this is the eighth book in the series: by that stage most series authors have a disintegrating dead horse on their hands, yet Rankin was starting to peak. The only books I've read comparable to this are a few John le Carrés: both use genre tropes, but those tropes are more alive, more entertaining and made more original in the hands of these authors than when churned out by the rest of the hacks.
In the intricacy (but never inaccessibility) of its intertwining plot strands, Black & Blue beats Booker-nominated thriller doorstop The Kills hands down. Makes it look so easy. And makes it look like other crime writers are padding out their novels with long scenes of moodily starting into space: this is 500 pages and Rebus is rarely doing that for more than a couple of sentences. There's too much happening to waste page-time on that, regardless of how the character's feeling (and that is conveyed succinctly). The kidnapped guy who launched himself out of a window in one of Edinburgh's most run down estates; the Glasgow gangsters; the oil-slick corrupt goings on in Aberdeen; the internal investigation into an old case; a stint giving up the booze; serial killers old and new. (And fictional and real. Bible John didn't hang over the West of Scotland to quite the extent Hindley and Brady do over north-west England, but there's something of that. Especially if you've met people of the victims' generation. Taking the narrative viewpoint - here close third - of a real person and making it believeable is by no means easy - I saw a lacklustre attempt to narrate as Greta Garbo in a short story last week - but Rankin pulls it off and makes it utterly convincing.)
Fictional maverick cops are frequently in trouble with their bosses, but it's very rare to see one be forced to empathise so closely with suspects, to have his (greatly valued, solitary) boundaries invaded as does Rebus here - and it's the quality of writing that does that over and above mere storyboarding. Many times, Rankin throws new light on events typical of crime fiction.
We're obviously in a nearby parallel universe of Thrillerland, but it all works, it never seems contrived, rather it's impressive.
Covering three major Scottish cities, Shetland, and some lands between, Black and Blue is also a panorama of the country and its local cultures. And of a point in time: areas in the process of regenerating with flash new buildings, on a cusp between old and new centuries, tired old Tory rule and the brink of New Labour and the Scottish Parliament; the topicality of the first plans for oil rig decommissioning; very occasional use of email and cellphones by a couple of characters, but a lot of scrabbling for payphone coins and calling your home answering machine - and the space and silence and escape you could still get just before everyone had portable digital thingies. It's a fairly androcentric world/police force - recalls what a novelty Prime Suspect once was - whilst Rebus and some, though certainly not all, of his colleagues are non-sexist, without being unconvincingly right-on. Sometimes the sense of the era is in the little details, like the use of the word New Age, about merely enjoying the view of a sky, or about travellers - and the spot-on choice of having a left-wing guy in his twenties carry around a copy of Iain Banks' Whit in his rucksack. It knows it's only half zeitgeisty, because Rebus is older than his author, and both his job and he as a personality are somewhat detached from the buzz; and Rebus sometimes regrets having missed pop cultural moments during his years in the army, but these lacunae make him part of his own small subculture with others like himself.
Rebus may be a recognisable archetype, yet he's drawn so very well (unlike the other lazy, blurry impressions of his sort elsewhere) that he feels more real than the characters in most books I've read this year. There's a certain kind of grumpy, dark mood that I feel can only be adequately externalised by sulking about with drink and cigarette, most probably in a pub, and Rebus rapidly became one of the characters I'm very happy to have do this for vicariously. I'll probably need more of him in the coming months. Just as well there are over 20 books. It now seems idiotic to have shunned this series for so long - but it does mean there's a feast to enjoy. Even among my favourites and 5-star books, I can't remember previously understanding why anyone would say "I envy people who haven't read X yet, and still have the pleasure of discovering it" - but over the last few days, whilst not everything has been easy, when reading Black and Blue, I often felt almost as I have done on favourite social occasions: savouring a peak moment and feeling nostalgia even whilst it's still happening.
December 17, 2016
Gold Dagger Winner, 1997 - “This book almost killed me! So I’m glad there’s been some recompense.” – Ian Rankin, January 6th 1998.
Rankin's coming of age, hard-boiled police procedural is one of my all time favourite crime novels. Serial killer ”Bible John” murdered three people 30 years ago, and then disappears. He’s back – or is it a copycat, nicknamed Bible Johnny, by the press?
Rebus has his hands full with solving the murder of an oil rig painter and he’s under investigation for planting evidence in an old case. But the real plot takes place within the mind of Rankin’s enigmatic protagonist, DI John Rebus.
Rebus is an obsessed maverick, a tenacious drunkard, a selfish father, and an egotistical ex-husband. Black & Blue is set in Edinburgh & Aberdeen, the cities scarred, scrabbled souls as poignant as Rebus’s own.
Rankin is one of the most gifted storytellers and Black & Blue is one of the most brilliant stories I’ve ever read. If it were not seen as a genre book, I believe that ‘Black & Blue’ could win a prize in any literary competition. Rankin juggles his characters, his words, his plot and his story with the skill of a writer at the height of his craft. The twist at the end is terrifying in its ordinariness.
The scary thing about Ian Rankin is that he keeps on getting better.
Rankin's coming of age, hard-boiled police procedural is one of my all time favourite crime novels. Serial killer ”Bible John” murdered three people 30 years ago, and then disappears. He’s back – or is it a copycat, nicknamed Bible Johnny, by the press?
Rebus has his hands full with solving the murder of an oil rig painter and he’s under investigation for planting evidence in an old case. But the real plot takes place within the mind of Rankin’s enigmatic protagonist, DI John Rebus.
Rebus is an obsessed maverick, a tenacious drunkard, a selfish father, and an egotistical ex-husband. Black & Blue is set in Edinburgh & Aberdeen, the cities scarred, scrabbled souls as poignant as Rebus’s own.
Rankin is one of the most gifted storytellers and Black & Blue is one of the most brilliant stories I’ve ever read. If it were not seen as a genre book, I believe that ‘Black & Blue’ could win a prize in any literary competition. Rankin juggles his characters, his words, his plot and his story with the skill of a writer at the height of his craft. The twist at the end is terrifying in its ordinariness.
The scary thing about Ian Rankin is that he keeps on getting better.
November 17, 2023
A great thriller. Rebus is trying to find the murderer of an oil worker that was murdered. It leads him to Aberdeen. Where he uncovers Bible John an actual real serial killer who murdered severs women in Glasgow with in the late 1960s. Another serial killer is imitating him and the real Bible John is not happy about the imitator.
Rebus discovers that a Glaswegian villain is supplying drugs to oil workers via a nightclub. More murders occur and Rebus is also under internal investigation about whether a murderer was a murderer. The story is fast paced with Rebus confronting his demons with alcohol and cigarettes.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The story is wrapped up nicely with Johnny Bible the other serial killer murdered by Bible John. The murderer of Alan was killed by a hard man Tony who was murdered by Stanley the son of the Glaswegian villain and not the sharpest card in the deck. The motive was bizarrely a cover up of incest between the daughter of Major Weir a wealthy oil tycoon. What I liked about the story was Bible John vanished again getting away. Rebus also is developing more as a character.
Rebus discovers that a Glaswegian villain is supplying drugs to oil workers via a nightclub. More murders occur and Rebus is also under internal investigation about whether a murderer was a murderer. The story is fast paced with Rebus confronting his demons with alcohol and cigarettes.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The story is wrapped up nicely with Johnny Bible the other serial killer murdered by Bible John. The murderer of Alan was killed by a hard man Tony who was murdered by Stanley the son of the Glaswegian villain and not the sharpest card in the deck. The motive was bizarrely a cover up of incest between the daughter of Major Weir a wealthy oil tycoon. What I liked about the story was Bible John vanished again getting away. Rebus also is developing more as a character.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 14, 2016
So far the best Rebus novel of the 8 I have read.
In this novel, Rankin uses a story he heard from a friend and builds up a whole narrative which is amazing.
John Rebus is mobile , he takes us all around Scotland in this book. From Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, to the Shetlands and the oil rigs in the Atlantic.
There are four crimes in this 500 pages novel. Rankin's most ambitious so far - as I am reading the series one books at time.
The four crimes connect the past to the present. A Bible John and his 'son' Johnny Bible.. Who is watching who and who is learning from who ?
And why would someone jump in a chair from a third floor building ??? A prank or an assassination.
Rebus is joined in this book with his friend from Knots and Crosses Jack Morton.
This book is a wonderful example of Tartan Noir.
In this novel, Rankin uses a story he heard from a friend and builds up a whole narrative which is amazing.
John Rebus is mobile , he takes us all around Scotland in this book. From Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, to the Shetlands and the oil rigs in the Atlantic.
There are four crimes in this 500 pages novel. Rankin's most ambitious so far - as I am reading the series one books at time.
The four crimes connect the past to the present. A Bible John and his 'son' Johnny Bible.. Who is watching who and who is learning from who ?
And why would someone jump in a chair from a third floor building ??? A prank or an assassination.
Rebus is joined in this book with his friend from Knots and Crosses Jack Morton.
This book is a wonderful example of Tartan Noir.
July 24, 2015
Up we go to five stars! Rankin is the master, and here's where he hits his stride.
Yesterday afternoon, I handed in an almighty-huge work project that I've been plugging away at for two months. In celebration, I took the evening to myself: bubble bath, glass of whisky, Rebus. Exactly how these things should be done. I read til the water got cold. And it was great.
This is the book where Rankin started to really get noticed, and it's also the book that reminds me how much I adore this whole genre: a collection of mysteries not so much interwoven as - to mix my metaphors - plates spinning dangerously close to each other. Character is layered on puzzle, on character again. Setting looms large: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen. Scotland as a nation is both self-aware and self-absorbed in a way that England just isn't, or I think so - and I think it's partly because of these types of novels, where characters just hang out in the major Scottish cities, and get to know everything about them. Characters just don't do that in Birmingham, Newcastle, Portsmouth. Maybe Manchester a bit. London for definite, but that's a different matter. Scottish literature seems somehow more geographically introspective than anything south of the border. (I can't comment on Wales; I've not read enough Welsh-set literature to know one way or the other. I suspect, however, that Northern Ireland is like Scotland in this respect.)
In the last few years, I've written a (forever-going-to-sit-in-a-drawer-and-be-a-reminder-of-my-own-failings-slash-growth) novel set in Southampton, and it's probably a cliché these days but I'd like to write one set in Edinburgh as well. Both of those places are important to me. Reading Rankin, Spark, Dunnett (you may keep Irvine Welsh, I'm afraid), I realise quite how much there is to live up to here, compared with any other city. Reading Black and Blue, I realise it all over again.
Read it for technical brilliance and the most practised hand at genre you'll have come across in a while.
Read for Tartan Noir Month, 2015.
Yesterday afternoon, I handed in an almighty-huge work project that I've been plugging away at for two months. In celebration, I took the evening to myself: bubble bath, glass of whisky, Rebus. Exactly how these things should be done. I read til the water got cold. And it was great.
This is the book where Rankin started to really get noticed, and it's also the book that reminds me how much I adore this whole genre: a collection of mysteries not so much interwoven as - to mix my metaphors - plates spinning dangerously close to each other. Character is layered on puzzle, on character again. Setting looms large: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen. Scotland as a nation is both self-aware and self-absorbed in a way that England just isn't, or I think so - and I think it's partly because of these types of novels, where characters just hang out in the major Scottish cities, and get to know everything about them. Characters just don't do that in Birmingham, Newcastle, Portsmouth. Maybe Manchester a bit. London for definite, but that's a different matter. Scottish literature seems somehow more geographically introspective than anything south of the border. (I can't comment on Wales; I've not read enough Welsh-set literature to know one way or the other. I suspect, however, that Northern Ireland is like Scotland in this respect.)
In the last few years, I've written a (forever-going-to-sit-in-a-drawer-and-be-a-reminder-of-my-own-failings-slash-growth) novel set in Southampton, and it's probably a cliché these days but I'd like to write one set in Edinburgh as well. Both of those places are important to me. Reading Rankin, Spark, Dunnett (you may keep Irvine Welsh, I'm afraid), I realise quite how much there is to live up to here, compared with any other city. Reading Black and Blue, I realise it all over again.
Read it for technical brilliance and the most practised hand at genre you'll have come across in a while.
Read for Tartan Noir Month, 2015.
December 12, 2018
This is the first Inspector Rebus book I have read and I found it enjoyable, if a little exhausting. The plot was interesting, the characters were well-drawn, but this was not an easy read. I had trouble following some of the twists and I truly don't believe alcoholic anti-social individuals make good detectives. I will give Rankin another try. Hopefully I won't feel like I've been through a 12-round boxing match.
April 14, 2020
Inspector Rebus mystery No. 8: Ranking continues writing these consistently food crime mysteries in the Rebus series. Rebus is involved with four cases and a personal investigation in to one of his past cases, whilst being under threat in both his personal and work lives! …somehow Rankin puts all this together in 500 pages, keeping it riveting, coherent and interesting, all with great personal characterisations! 7 out of 12
November 10, 2024
Eighth in the Rebus series, Black and Blue published in 1997, was awarded the Golden Dagger Award for the best crime novel that year and established Ian Rankin as a major force in Scottish noir crime. Almost 30 years on it has lost none of its punch.
Opening in Edinburgh, a snitch is confessing to be the serial murderer dubbed “Johnny Bible” – with Rebus and a colleague taking him apart as yet another nutcase attention seeker. But the so-called serial killer is himself a copycat, emulating his hero, a psychopath named “Bible John” from the 1960’s. Meanwhile, Rebus is called to a homicide/suicide, with a man bound and gagged falling to his death – or was he pushed? Identified as a man working in the oil industry, seen drinking with two others, a partial print identifies one as a known associate of Glasgow crime boss ‘Uncle Joe” Toal.
Rebus’ investigation is hamstrung from the start. He was a junior detective working on the “Bible John” case when an arrest was made – the accused claiming his innocence now dead, ditto Rebus’ superior, which leaves him the only one left in the frame in an internal inquiry. In this book a young Siobhan Clarke and “Big Ger” Cafferty play cameo roles, and Rebus is reunited with DI Jack Morton (Knots & Crosses), assigned to shadow him by DCI Ancram (Glasgow), heading up the inquiry.
There are so many bad actors in this book (killers, mobsters, bent police) that it was hard to keep track of the good guys, but for this reader it was sold on 3 things: the laugh-out loud humour, the background on the oil industry, and for Rebus - never a friend of flying - kitted out in a survival suit in a helicopter on his way to an oil rig, ‘in case we need to ditch in the North Sea’. Survival rate? Five minutes before hypothermia sets in. And in the background? The real “Bible John”, stalking his would-be admirer.
Verdict: Classic Rebus.
Opening in Edinburgh, a snitch is confessing to be the serial murderer dubbed “Johnny Bible” – with Rebus and a colleague taking him apart as yet another nutcase attention seeker. But the so-called serial killer is himself a copycat, emulating his hero, a psychopath named “Bible John” from the 1960’s. Meanwhile, Rebus is called to a homicide/suicide, with a man bound and gagged falling to his death – or was he pushed? Identified as a man working in the oil industry, seen drinking with two others, a partial print identifies one as a known associate of Glasgow crime boss ‘Uncle Joe” Toal.
Rebus’ investigation is hamstrung from the start. He was a junior detective working on the “Bible John” case when an arrest was made – the accused claiming his innocence now dead, ditto Rebus’ superior, which leaves him the only one left in the frame in an internal inquiry. In this book a young Siobhan Clarke and “Big Ger” Cafferty play cameo roles, and Rebus is reunited with DI Jack Morton (Knots & Crosses), assigned to shadow him by DCI Ancram (Glasgow), heading up the inquiry.
There are so many bad actors in this book (killers, mobsters, bent police) that it was hard to keep track of the good guys, but for this reader it was sold on 3 things: the laugh-out loud humour, the background on the oil industry, and for Rebus - never a friend of flying - kitted out in a survival suit in a helicopter on his way to an oil rig, ‘in case we need to ditch in the North Sea’. Survival rate? Five minutes before hypothermia sets in. And in the background? The real “Bible John”, stalking his would-be admirer.
Verdict: Classic Rebus.
April 15, 2021
Another really good Rebus novel from Ian Rankin, full of ambiguity, moral questions, great characters and above all a an interesting and very well plotted storyline. If only all crime novels could be as well written as this.
December 25, 2020
İçkiyi ve sigarayı bırakan bir Rebus bakalım nasıl olacak 🤔
Bu arada ucu açık biten bir önceki kitapla ilgili sadece tek bir cümlelik bir bilgi vardı ama o da yine çok açıklayıcı deģildi.
Bu arada ucu açık biten bir önceki kitapla ilgili sadece tek bir cümlelik bir bilgi vardı ama o da yine çok açıklayıcı deģildi.
October 6, 2021
3.5 stars
April 30, 2021
The more I read of Ian Rankin's books, the more I like them and his protagonist, John Rebus. All of the books thus far in the series have been "meaty": requiring the reader to hunker down and get serious about this reading journey. Black and Blue offers an especially complex and twisting plot.
In what will not be a surprise to readers of this series, in Black and Blue Detective Inspector John Rebus once again finds himself in hot water with his superiors. This time, Rebus finds himself the lone target of an internal inquiry into the arrest of a man twenty years earlier. That man professed his innocence at the time and continued to do so right up until the time of his prison suicide.
Along with a current investigation into the suspicious death of a young man, Rebus has also found himself obsessed with a serial killer from two decades earlier who has never been identified or arrested, a killer given the moniker "Bible John."
Here Rankin has interspersed fact with fiction: Bible John is an actual serial killer in Scotland who was never identified or caught. There are a number of theories about what has happened to the triple murderer. Rankin plays out one of those theories through the story here in Black and Blue.
A thoroughly engaging, suspenseful and emotionally-charged reading experience.
In what will not be a surprise to readers of this series, in Black and Blue Detective Inspector John Rebus once again finds himself in hot water with his superiors. This time, Rebus finds himself the lone target of an internal inquiry into the arrest of a man twenty years earlier. That man professed his innocence at the time and continued to do so right up until the time of his prison suicide.
Along with a current investigation into the suspicious death of a young man, Rebus has also found himself obsessed with a serial killer from two decades earlier who has never been identified or arrested, a killer given the moniker "Bible John."
Here Rankin has interspersed fact with fiction: Bible John is an actual serial killer in Scotland who was never identified or caught. There are a number of theories about what has happened to the triple murderer. Rankin plays out one of those theories through the story here in Black and Blue.
A thoroughly engaging, suspenseful and emotionally-charged reading experience.
January 27, 2018
Yet another one of those books you can't put down even though you ought to tend to other needed activities. I am in awe of how much great stuff was contained within this one book. One feature I warmed up to was getting to experience Rebus sober. Black and Blue? Yeah, I think I'm feeling that way after reading through several of his beatings...but then he just keeps going strong. And with so many odds stacked against him in this episode.
We get internal investigations of Rebus for things long past, trips back and forth from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Aberdeen, the Shetland Islands, oil rigs, environmentalists, crime leaders moving operations from one town to another, suicides and other deaths and Rebus continually handing off his results to his female friends for credit.
Whilst under investigation Rebus gains a roommate minder and they do a bit of painting and fixing up of his home as he daydreams of the possibility of retiring on pension to a seaside cottage.
"'The other thing we could do is keep on with the decorating...'Rebus wrinkled his nose. 'The mood's passed.' 'You're not going to sell?' Rebus shook his head. 'No cottage by the sea?' 'I think I'll settle for where I am, Jack. It seems to suit me.' 'And where's that exactly?' Rebus considered his answer. 'Somewhere north of hell.'"
We get internal investigations of Rebus for things long past, trips back and forth from Edinburgh to Glasgow, Aberdeen, the Shetland Islands, oil rigs, environmentalists, crime leaders moving operations from one town to another, suicides and other deaths and Rebus continually handing off his results to his female friends for credit.
Whilst under investigation Rebus gains a roommate minder and they do a bit of painting and fixing up of his home as he daydreams of the possibility of retiring on pension to a seaside cottage.
"'The other thing we could do is keep on with the decorating...'Rebus wrinkled his nose. 'The mood's passed.' 'You're not going to sell?' Rebus shook his head. 'No cottage by the sea?' 'I think I'll settle for where I am, Jack. It seems to suit me.' 'And where's that exactly?' Rebus considered his answer. 'Somewhere north of hell.'"
February 7, 2025
A finely constructed John Rebus novel. It goes so many places. It’s an amazing thing watching Rebus work his way through events to sort out what ties into what and bring us to a startling conclusion. A darn good series thus far.
March 21, 2011
Prime Rebus. This is exactly what I was looking for, and failed to get, when I read Mortal Causes. An extremely heavy, intertwined and self-inflicted case load dogs Rebus all across Scotland.
The best Rebus books offer a strong investigation - if not a mystery - and, more importantly, strong characterisation of the man himself. Rebus is the drawcard and he does not disappoint, the cover suggesting that Black & Blue is the novel that raised Rankin to the upper echelons of crime writing. Given what's on offer here, it's hard to deny.
The book starts off shakily, with Rebus not only condoning a light beating for a suspect but also threatening to lock him up for the night with an "arse-bandit". These are ill-tidings, but Rankin instead chooses a different tack: condemned to purgatory and subject to an internal investigation, Rebus bucks all systems in an attempt to emerge victorious.
His relationship with alcohol is treated seriously, which is something Rankin has never been consistent with (I'm saying this reading the series out of order, so I could be well off the mark here). Rebus somehow sobers up here, but obviously this is not to be a lasting trend. The credibility of the character is, by design, always questionable; there is no way that a policeman could or would be able to subvert so much procedure as Rebus does, lest Scotland sink into the ocean.
Within its own parameters, though, this Rebus is Rankin near or close to his best. Heck, he even pays Siobhan lip service.
The best Rebus books offer a strong investigation - if not a mystery - and, more importantly, strong characterisation of the man himself. Rebus is the drawcard and he does not disappoint, the cover suggesting that Black & Blue is the novel that raised Rankin to the upper echelons of crime writing. Given what's on offer here, it's hard to deny.
The book starts off shakily, with Rebus not only condoning a light beating for a suspect but also threatening to lock him up for the night with an "arse-bandit". These are ill-tidings, but Rankin instead chooses a different tack: condemned to purgatory and subject to an internal investigation, Rebus bucks all systems in an attempt to emerge victorious.
His relationship with alcohol is treated seriously, which is something Rankin has never been consistent with (I'm saying this reading the series out of order, so I could be well off the mark here). Rebus somehow sobers up here, but obviously this is not to be a lasting trend. The credibility of the character is, by design, always questionable; there is no way that a policeman could or would be able to subvert so much procedure as Rebus does, lest Scotland sink into the ocean.
Within its own parameters, though, this Rebus is Rankin near or close to his best. Heck, he even pays Siobhan lip service.
September 24, 2016
Disappointing, esp. given Rankin's usually reliable Rebus tales. This book reads like at least three mysteries in one ("I think I shall write about the oil industry - no wait, the drug industry- no wait, organized crime - no wait, two serial killers"), and the connections provided by the end of the book are pretty uninteresting after one has to wade through all the extraneous material about the oil industry. Could have used a good editor to say, no, this is really two books - or three - why don't you choose and pare it down? Perhaps this is what happens when a strong fiction writer relies too heavily on a "real" crime as the basis for the story. While the return to the relationship between Rebus and Jack Morton is a refreshing one, I missed the interaction between Rebus and Siobhan Clarke in this one. And, please - Rebus goes on the wagon? Need I say more?
October 20, 2012
Good mystery. Took me ages to finish it because I kept getting sidetracked by other books, but it held my interest throughout. I had previously read another book from this serious which was a decent read, but not exactly a great one. This one was a pleasant surprise. A series I'll be reading more from.
February 22, 2015
I’m going to begin my review of Ian Rankin’s masterful Black and Blue by doing something I’ve tried to refrain from doing lately: bitching about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). For the uninitiated – in other words, readers of my reviews who don’t know what I’m up to in my life off the computer – my problems with the CCSS aren’t some Glenn Beckian, “Obama’s a secret Muslim so let’s cancel AP US History” goofabout. Nope: my problems with it are manifold, very real, and based in the twenty years I’ve spent in the classroom as, first, a high school English teacher and, currently, a teacher educator. I’m not going to bore you to tears by illustrating all of them here, but what I am going to do is touch on how Rankin’s Rebus mystery series, and this book in particular, do a bang-up job of putting the lie to a couple of the CCSS central tenets.
This is the eighth novel to feature Detective Inspector John Rebus and the fourth one I’ve read since I began the 21st Century Bookshelf Deprivation Project, but this is actually the first time I’ve written one of these lengthy reviews on one of them. So, to catch you up before I plunge headfirst into the CCSS mire, D.I. Rebus is a rumpled alcoholic loner who’s largely been a failure in his personal life because of his tendency to obsess over the cases he’s assigned. The series takes place in and around Edinburgh, Scotland, and, rather than emulate the largely dopey tendency of American mystery series to feature a killer of the week in each book (see Sandford, Patterson, Deaver, et. al.), Rankin’s series is deeply Scottish and is concerned more centrally with mysteries that plumb the depths of British identity. Rankin is, for my money, the best mystery writer working today (even better than my beloved Mo Hayder).
What does any of this have to do with the CCSS? Two things, which I’ll take in turn – and I promise I’ll be talking about Black and Blue soon.
David Coleman, the architect of the English Language Arts standards and self-acknowledged unqualified non-teacher, is on record as believing students shouldn’t be encouraged to bring their prior knowledge to bear on a text, focusing instead only on what they can learn from “the four corners of the page.” The most asinine example of this is his series of lessons on teaching the Gettysburg Address, which he believes should be done without sharing the cultural and historical context surrounding the delivery of Lincoln’s most famous speech. At this point I invite you to think of a time when you haven’t brought your prior knowledge and experience with you when you read. Is it even possible? When I read I’m constantly holding the text up against what I already know about the world, drawing on that prior knowledge as a way of illuminating the story (or essay or article or whatever). It seems even more important for younger, less confident readers to see this as a viable strategy. If nothing else, it lets them know what gaps in their understanding they need to fill. If they’re not engaging in this sort of metacognitive thought, it’s unlikely they’ll get what they need from whatever it is they’re reading.
Which brings me back to Ian Rankin. His Rebus series is not especially well-known in the States. You can find a smattering of his stuff at your local Barnes & Noble, but he’s not exactly a name up there in recognition with John Patterson (which I’d argue isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but that’s an essay for another time). I chalk up a lot of this anonymity to a lack of cultural knowledge. As I mentioned earlier, Rankin’s series is inextricably linked to its Scottish setting and characters, and he doesn’t really hold the reader’s hand. If you pick up one of his books and don’t have at least a passing familiarity with Scotland, British government, the geography and economy of the U.K., Scots slang, etc., etc., you’re going to have a tough go of it. In other words, if you don’t have the requisite prior knowledge to draw on, the four corners of the page aren’t going to do much to help you out. Because I’m an unrepentant (and nerdy – oh so nerdy) Anglophile, I’ve got a decent understanding of what I need to make sense of the story, and part of the fun of it (for me, at least) is putting that understanding into play. It’s crucial to my enjoyment of the series, just as I’m sure the prior knowledge you bring to your favorite genres is crucial to your own. But David Coleman says it’s not important. And in that he’s dead wrong.
The second way Black and Blue has some important things to tell us about the deficiencies of the CCSS deals with the way the standards enforce faulty distinctions in text types. In the great middle school dance that is the CCSS, “informational texts” are the 7th grade boys huddled on one side of the gymnasium and “literary texts” are the girls arrayed on the other side. If we’re to believe the CCSS, these two groups never touch and never dance – they’re kept artificially apart, probably by David Coleman and a yardstick. The implication in the standards is that we read literary texts for enjoyment (and also for evisceration, as we examine them for all manner of things adored by teachers and hated by students) and informational texts to learn things. While I wholeheartedly agree that we should resist the urge to overemphasize efferent readings of texts meant to be read aesthetically, the notion that we don’t learn anything from literary texts is laughable.
Black and Blue illustrates this perfectly. At the start of the eighth book in the series, Rebus has been drummed out of his previous post because he annoyed the wrong people in Book 7. Now he’s officially trying to figure out who killed an oil refinery worker and unofficially trying to solve a series of murders that look remarkably like the work of Bible John, a killer operating in the late 1960s. At the same time, Rebus himself becomes the focus of an internal affairs investigation, thanks to some question marks that exist from a case he and his mentor solved early in his career. As with all of Rankin’s previous books, it’s intense, nail-biting stuff, twisty-turny and darkly funny. By this point Rebus practically leaps off the page, a flawed cop who seems all too real, and it’s to Rankin’s credit that he paints both the murder investigations and the internal affairs chess match with the same intensity. But here’s the thing: Even while I found myself dragged into Rebus’ struggles with alcohol and authority and enjoying Rankin’s way with hard-boiled dialogue, I learned at least three things:
• Bible John was a real killer, operating in Glasgow in 1969. He murdered three women before dropping completely off the radar.
• Aberdeen, Scotland became known as the “Oil Capital of Europe” in the mid-1970s, and refineries in the North Sea are still active.
• The Shetland Islands have more in common with Scandinavia than with Scotland. They’re also really windy.
The above bullets are just snapshots of the first three things that came to mind, and there’s more I picked up about each of them than I cared to include here (especially about the lives of workers on oil rigs). But all of them illustrate the fallacy of keeping informational and literary texts at arm’s length. We can learn things about the world from novels and short stories and poetry (I know more about 19th Century sailing vessels than I ever wanted to know, thanks to Dan Simmons’ horror novel, The Terror), and we can appreciate the grace and craft of well-written nonfiction (see the beginning of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring for a prime example).
And this is maybe the perfect encapsulation of my problems with the CCSS: they’re too limiting. They enforce artificial boxes that reduce the study of English Language Arts to categories and formulas and easily assessed terminology. Rather than help students see the intricate web of relationships that bind history and literature and culture and film and the sciences and art, we compartmentalize all of it and warn students that we should never mix the contents of these boxes we’ve created for them. It’s a mistake that puts the lie to the CCSS tagline of “College and Career Readiness.” Existing in the world goes beyond just being college and career ready; it’s learning how to navigate the very real complexities that connect each minute of the day to the text.
Read all my reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net
This is the eighth novel to feature Detective Inspector John Rebus and the fourth one I’ve read since I began the 21st Century Bookshelf Deprivation Project, but this is actually the first time I’ve written one of these lengthy reviews on one of them. So, to catch you up before I plunge headfirst into the CCSS mire, D.I. Rebus is a rumpled alcoholic loner who’s largely been a failure in his personal life because of his tendency to obsess over the cases he’s assigned. The series takes place in and around Edinburgh, Scotland, and, rather than emulate the largely dopey tendency of American mystery series to feature a killer of the week in each book (see Sandford, Patterson, Deaver, et. al.), Rankin’s series is deeply Scottish and is concerned more centrally with mysteries that plumb the depths of British identity. Rankin is, for my money, the best mystery writer working today (even better than my beloved Mo Hayder).
What does any of this have to do with the CCSS? Two things, which I’ll take in turn – and I promise I’ll be talking about Black and Blue soon.
David Coleman, the architect of the English Language Arts standards and self-acknowledged unqualified non-teacher, is on record as believing students shouldn’t be encouraged to bring their prior knowledge to bear on a text, focusing instead only on what they can learn from “the four corners of the page.” The most asinine example of this is his series of lessons on teaching the Gettysburg Address, which he believes should be done without sharing the cultural and historical context surrounding the delivery of Lincoln’s most famous speech. At this point I invite you to think of a time when you haven’t brought your prior knowledge and experience with you when you read. Is it even possible? When I read I’m constantly holding the text up against what I already know about the world, drawing on that prior knowledge as a way of illuminating the story (or essay or article or whatever). It seems even more important for younger, less confident readers to see this as a viable strategy. If nothing else, it lets them know what gaps in their understanding they need to fill. If they’re not engaging in this sort of metacognitive thought, it’s unlikely they’ll get what they need from whatever it is they’re reading.
Which brings me back to Ian Rankin. His Rebus series is not especially well-known in the States. You can find a smattering of his stuff at your local Barnes & Noble, but he’s not exactly a name up there in recognition with John Patterson (which I’d argue isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but that’s an essay for another time). I chalk up a lot of this anonymity to a lack of cultural knowledge. As I mentioned earlier, Rankin’s series is inextricably linked to its Scottish setting and characters, and he doesn’t really hold the reader’s hand. If you pick up one of his books and don’t have at least a passing familiarity with Scotland, British government, the geography and economy of the U.K., Scots slang, etc., etc., you’re going to have a tough go of it. In other words, if you don’t have the requisite prior knowledge to draw on, the four corners of the page aren’t going to do much to help you out. Because I’m an unrepentant (and nerdy – oh so nerdy) Anglophile, I’ve got a decent understanding of what I need to make sense of the story, and part of the fun of it (for me, at least) is putting that understanding into play. It’s crucial to my enjoyment of the series, just as I’m sure the prior knowledge you bring to your favorite genres is crucial to your own. But David Coleman says it’s not important. And in that he’s dead wrong.
The second way Black and Blue has some important things to tell us about the deficiencies of the CCSS deals with the way the standards enforce faulty distinctions in text types. In the great middle school dance that is the CCSS, “informational texts” are the 7th grade boys huddled on one side of the gymnasium and “literary texts” are the girls arrayed on the other side. If we’re to believe the CCSS, these two groups never touch and never dance – they’re kept artificially apart, probably by David Coleman and a yardstick. The implication in the standards is that we read literary texts for enjoyment (and also for evisceration, as we examine them for all manner of things adored by teachers and hated by students) and informational texts to learn things. While I wholeheartedly agree that we should resist the urge to overemphasize efferent readings of texts meant to be read aesthetically, the notion that we don’t learn anything from literary texts is laughable.
Black and Blue illustrates this perfectly. At the start of the eighth book in the series, Rebus has been drummed out of his previous post because he annoyed the wrong people in Book 7. Now he’s officially trying to figure out who killed an oil refinery worker and unofficially trying to solve a series of murders that look remarkably like the work of Bible John, a killer operating in the late 1960s. At the same time, Rebus himself becomes the focus of an internal affairs investigation, thanks to some question marks that exist from a case he and his mentor solved early in his career. As with all of Rankin’s previous books, it’s intense, nail-biting stuff, twisty-turny and darkly funny. By this point Rebus practically leaps off the page, a flawed cop who seems all too real, and it’s to Rankin’s credit that he paints both the murder investigations and the internal affairs chess match with the same intensity. But here’s the thing: Even while I found myself dragged into Rebus’ struggles with alcohol and authority and enjoying Rankin’s way with hard-boiled dialogue, I learned at least three things:
• Bible John was a real killer, operating in Glasgow in 1969. He murdered three women before dropping completely off the radar.
• Aberdeen, Scotland became known as the “Oil Capital of Europe” in the mid-1970s, and refineries in the North Sea are still active.
• The Shetland Islands have more in common with Scandinavia than with Scotland. They’re also really windy.
The above bullets are just snapshots of the first three things that came to mind, and there’s more I picked up about each of them than I cared to include here (especially about the lives of workers on oil rigs). But all of them illustrate the fallacy of keeping informational and literary texts at arm’s length. We can learn things about the world from novels and short stories and poetry (I know more about 19th Century sailing vessels than I ever wanted to know, thanks to Dan Simmons’ horror novel, The Terror), and we can appreciate the grace and craft of well-written nonfiction (see the beginning of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring for a prime example).
And this is maybe the perfect encapsulation of my problems with the CCSS: they’re too limiting. They enforce artificial boxes that reduce the study of English Language Arts to categories and formulas and easily assessed terminology. Rather than help students see the intricate web of relationships that bind history and literature and culture and film and the sciences and art, we compartmentalize all of it and warn students that we should never mix the contents of these boxes we’ve created for them. It’s a mistake that puts the lie to the CCSS tagline of “College and Career Readiness.” Existing in the world goes beyond just being college and career ready; it’s learning how to navigate the very real complexities that connect each minute of the day to the text.
Read all my reviews at goldstarforrobotboy.net
December 20, 2023
In this, the Rebus books move into a higher gear in my opinion. Rebus is suffering the consequences of his principled stand in 'Let It Bleed' where he gave up his chance of promotion to a despised self-serving colleague in order to bring corrupt politicians to justice. As punishment he has been sent to a rundown station which is in the throes of closing to move to a new building. His boss there is pretty laid back: just as well, given how Rebus frequently goes off to pursue his own agendas.
Firstly, he is trying to solve the suspicious death of a man who worked on an offshore oil rig, and secondly he has become obsessed with the late 1960s (this book was published in the late 1990s) serial killer named Bible John by the media. This is due to the fact that another killer is now operating, as a copycat, and has been dubbed Johnny Bible by the same media. Unlike his bosses, Rebus is convinced (rightly as it turns out) that Bible John is still alive and may be active again, drawn out by his 'offspring'.
In this book Rebus goes through more physical punishment than I can recall in others and also undergoes an emotional breakdown in which he faces how severe his drink problem has become. Also, for the first time as far as I'm aware, sections of the book switch to the point of view of another character. I won't say who it is to avoid spoilers, but it added another layer as the reader is aware of how close Rebus is coming to his quarry - and how he may be putting himself in danger by doing so. Meanwhile, his investigation into the oilman's death also puts him in hazardous situations, not least because of his obviously shown suspicion that certain police are in the pocket of a Glaswegian crime boss.
Rebus roams widely across Scotland in this book, spending a lot of time away from Edinburgh and it's an interesting perspective on other areas and other police forces. All in all, I enjoyed the book so much and thought the complexity paid off this time and didn't bog down, as it did in the preceding book, so I am awarding it 5 stars.
Firstly, he is trying to solve the suspicious death of a man who worked on an offshore oil rig, and secondly he has become obsessed with the late 1960s (this book was published in the late 1990s) serial killer named Bible John by the media. This is due to the fact that another killer is now operating, as a copycat, and has been dubbed Johnny Bible by the same media. Unlike his bosses, Rebus is convinced (rightly as it turns out) that Bible John is still alive and may be active again, drawn out by his 'offspring'.
In this book Rebus goes through more physical punishment than I can recall in others and also undergoes an emotional breakdown in which he faces how severe his drink problem has become. Also, for the first time as far as I'm aware, sections of the book switch to the point of view of another character. I won't say who it is to avoid spoilers, but it added another layer as the reader is aware of how close Rebus is coming to his quarry - and how he may be putting himself in danger by doing so. Meanwhile, his investigation into the oilman's death also puts him in hazardous situations, not least because of his obviously shown suspicion that certain police are in the pocket of a Glaswegian crime boss.
Rebus roams widely across Scotland in this book, spending a lot of time away from Edinburgh and it's an interesting perspective on other areas and other police forces. All in all, I enjoyed the book so much and thought the complexity paid off this time and didn't bog down, as it did in the preceding book, so I am awarding it 5 stars.
December 28, 2018
למעשה זהו הספר ה 8 בסידרת המפקח ג'ון ריבוס. גרוש, אלכוהליסט, מעשן כבד וורקוהליסט. בלש במשטרת סקוטלנד שהרגיז את הממונים ולכן הוגלה לתחנה נידחת באדינבורו.
בספר הזה, שהוא השני בסידרה בעברית- את הראשון לא קראתי - ג'ון ריבוס מתמודד בו זמנית עם מספר פרשיות רצח ועם אישומים שסייע לטייח מעצר והפללת אסיר שלבסוף התאבד. מדובר באסיר שהפך למיני סלב כשהתחיל לפרסם ספרים בדיוניים מהכלא ולקראת מותו אף פרסם אוטוביוגרפיה בה ציין את שמו של ג'ון ריבוס בין 2 השמות שלטענתו הפלילו אותו.
פרשיות הרצח משתלבות זו בזו והן כרוכות ברוצח סידרתי שפעל לפני 10 שנים בשם
בייבל ג'ון, שכן נהג לצטט פסוקים מהתנך. אותו רוצח מעולם לא נתפס אבל קם לו חקיין, המכונה ג'וני בייבל. ריבוס מוצא עצמו במרדף אחר רוחו של בייבל ג'ון ואחר ג'וני בייבל במקביל לשתי פרשיות רצח של 2 עובדים באסדות הגז והנפט.
רנקין מתאר את השפעות האסדות על האקולוגיה ועל הכלכלה. את כוחן הכלכלי של חברות אלה והשפעותיהן החברתיות.
במקביל לאלה הוא גם חוקר פרשיית סמים ונחקר על חלקו במעצר ספייבן - האסיר שהתאבד.
העלילות משתלבות ומגיעות כולן לנקודת השקה אחת בצורה מתוחכמת וצריך סבלנות שכן לא מדובר בספר בלש סטנדרטי.
ברקע הסיפור, מצטרפת דמותו של בייבל ג'ון שמוצא את החיקויים שלו מעליבים ולכן הוא מנסה לאתר את ג'וני בייבל בעצמו. הוא מכנה את ג'וני בייבל כוכב חדש.
לכל אלה מצטרפות מספר דמויות נשיות
חלקן חזקות ומניפולטיביות, חלקן מציפות את הקושי של נשים הנשואות לשוטרים הנשואים לעבודה שלהם.
דמותו של הבלש ריבוס מאתגרת היא מעניינת ודוחה בו זמנית. הוא חובב אלכוהול מושבע ואת הבוקר הוא מתחיל בכוסית ויסקי. גם את הערב הוא סוגר באלכוהול. הוא נקרא דמות מוזנחת אבל באופן מפתיע הוא חד ראיה כתער והסקת המסקנות שלו צלולה.
הוא חביב הנשים אבל שנוא הגברים, הוא מצטייר כאדם חסר גבולות ומשמעת והאלימות שבו מתפרצת לא אחת במהלך הסיפור. אין לי מושג אם אני מחבבת אותו או לא.
לפרקים ריבוס נתפס בעיניי כהודיני שיכור וסהרורי שמצליח לצאת מכל תסבוכת שאליה נקלע באופן יצירתי ושובר מוסכמות. לפרקים הוא נתפס בעיניי כגאון שמנצל כל בדל הזדמנות שעומדת לרשותו.
נקודת התורפה המרכזית בספר היא האיטיות של התפתחות העלילות השונות והמורכבות שלהן כשברקע ישנה
תחושה מתמידה שהעלילות קשורות ומתחברות אבל הקורא לא יכול לשים את האצבע על נקודות החיבור עד השליש האחרון של הספר. האיטיות שבה העלילות מתאחדות פשוט מחרפנת.
בשליש האחרון של הספר הקצב הולך ומואץ ואי אפשר להניח אותו מהידיים.
נקודת תורפה נוספת היא ריבוי קווי העלילה המקומות והדמויות השונות (בל נשכח ששתים מהדמויות המרכזיות מכונות באותו שם כמעט עד שהבנתי שמדובר בשתי דמויות שונות).
העלילה נפרסת לאורכה ולרוחבה של סקוטלנד בערים כמו אברדין, גלזגו, אדינבורו, דנדי ועוד. היא כוללת כמה עשרות דמויות מרכזיות ודמויות משנה וכאמור הספר כולל לפחות 5 קווי עלילה מרכזיים ומספר עלילות משנה שלא ברור לי עדין אם הן זניחות או לא.
ספר אינטיליגנטי, לא מתמסר בקלות, אבל בהחלט שווה את המאמץ.
בספר הזה, שהוא השני בסידרה בעברית- את הראשון לא קראתי - ג'ון ריבוס מתמודד בו זמנית עם מספר פרשיות רצח ועם אישומים שסייע לטייח מעצר והפללת אסיר שלבסוף התאבד. מדובר באסיר שהפך למיני סלב כשהתחיל לפרסם ספרים בדיוניים מהכלא ולקראת מותו אף פרסם אוטוביוגרפיה בה ציין את שמו של ג'ון ריבוס בין 2 השמות שלטענתו הפלילו אותו.
פרשיות הרצח משתלבות זו בזו והן כרוכות ברוצח סידרתי שפעל לפני 10 שנים בשם
בייבל ג'ון, שכן נהג לצטט פסוקים מהתנך. אותו רוצח מעולם לא נתפס אבל קם לו חקיין, המכונה ג'וני בייבל. ריבוס מוצא עצמו במרדף אחר רוחו של בייבל ג'ון ואחר ג'וני בייבל במקביל לשתי פרשיות רצח של 2 עובדים באסדות הגז והנפט.
רנקין מתאר את השפעות האסדות על האקולוגיה ועל הכלכלה. את כוחן הכלכלי של חברות אלה והשפעותיהן החברתיות.
במקביל לאלה הוא גם חוקר פרשיית סמים ונחקר על חלקו במעצר ספייבן - האסיר שהתאבד.
העלילות משתלבות ומגיעות כולן לנקודת השקה אחת בצורה מתוחכמת וצריך סבלנות שכן לא מדובר בספר בלש סטנדרטי.
ברקע הסיפור, מצטרפת דמותו של בייבל ג'ון שמוצא את החיקויים שלו מעליבים ולכן הוא מנסה לאתר את ג'וני בייבל בעצמו. הוא מכנה את ג'וני בייבל כוכב חדש.
לכל אלה מצטרפות מספר דמויות נשיות
חלקן חזקות ומניפולטיביות, חלקן מציפות את הקושי של נשים הנשואות לשוטרים הנשואים לעבודה שלהם.
דמותו של הבלש ריבוס מאתגרת היא מעניינת ודוחה בו זמנית. הוא חובב אלכוהול מושבע ואת הבוקר הוא מתחיל בכוסית ויסקי. גם את הערב הוא סוגר באלכוהול. הוא נקרא דמות מוזנחת אבל באופן מפתיע הוא חד ראיה כתער והסקת המסקנות שלו צלולה.
הוא חביב הנשים אבל שנוא הגברים, הוא מצטייר כאדם חסר גבולות ומשמעת והאלימות שבו מתפרצת לא אחת במהלך הסיפור. אין לי מושג אם אני מחבבת אותו או לא.
לפרקים ריבוס נתפס בעיניי כהודיני שיכור וסהרורי שמצליח לצאת מכל תסבוכת שאליה נקלע באופן יצירתי ושובר מוסכמות. לפרקים הוא נתפס בעיניי כגאון שמנצל כל בדל הזדמנות שעומדת לרשותו.
נקודת התורפה המרכזית בספר היא האיטיות של התפתחות העלילות השונות והמורכבות שלהן כשברקע ישנה
תחושה מתמידה שהעלילות קשורות ומתחברות אבל הקורא לא יכול לשים את האצבע על נקודות החיבור עד השליש האחרון של הספר. האיטיות שבה העלילות מתאחדות פשוט מחרפנת.
בשליש האחרון של הספר הקצב הולך ומואץ ואי אפשר להניח אותו מהידיים.
נקודת תורפה נוספת היא ריבוי קווי העלילה המקומות והדמויות השונות (בל נשכח ששתים מהדמויות המרכזיות מכונות באותו שם כמעט עד שהבנתי שמדובר בשתי דמויות שונות).
העלילה נפרסת לאורכה ולרוחבה של סקוטלנד בערים כמו אברדין, גלזגו, אדינבורו, דנדי ועוד. היא כוללת כמה עשרות דמויות מרכזיות ודמויות משנה וכאמור הספר כולל לפחות 5 קווי עלילה מרכזיים ומספר עלילות משנה שלא ברור לי עדין אם הן זניחות או לא.
ספר אינטיליגנטי, לא מתמסר בקלות, אבל בהחלט שווה את המאמץ.
July 5, 2017
This book kept me up at night while my mind worked through Rebus and all of his faults, mistakes and efforts to solve the crime(s) through multiple threads, lines of investigation and issues with his fellow officers. He's in a bad place personally as well through an investigation into a past case that he was involved in.
As always, Rankin tells an intriguing story, bringing the reader along on a thrilling ride as we travel across Scotland with his main character.
As always, Rankin tells an intriguing story, bringing the reader along on a thrilling ride as we travel across Scotland with his main character.
October 28, 2023
The Edinburgh police are looking for Johnny Bible, a copycat serial killer of women stalked by Bible John two decades before. DI Rebus was a constable being mentored by his supervisor, DI Lawson Geddes, when Bible John was active but instead of catching Bible John they'd caught Lenny Spaven. Spaven's storage garage showed he not only was selling stolen goods but was involved in a woman's murder. Rebus and Geddes didn't have a warrant when they caught Spaven. After conviction Spaven wrote a series of popular stores (fiction, then perhaps real) from prison, protesting his innocence. Geddes resigned and retired to a tropical island with his wife. After his wife died, he committed suicide. Then Spaven's writing became popular TV dramas and the press was demanding another look into Geddes framing Spaven. Then Spaven committed suicide, still claiming innocence. Rebus is the only man left alive to talk to the press but Edinborough police investigate Rebus to discern his honesty in the case. Rebus, meanwhile is trying to figure out why a North Sea oil worker would be tied up in a chair and jump out a window in Edinburgh. His bosses keep an eye on him with his old friend DI Jack Morton and the pair of them do a lot of trips up to Aberdeen. Organized crime, drugs, porn, nightclubs, betrayals, oil money, secret lives, heavy drinking, lots of missing people, some bodies, and Americans.
February 26, 2021
This book took a while for me to get into, mainly because I don't have an innate interested in the Scottish oil industry. This is the book for you if you want to learn about Scottish oil. However, as the storyline became more and more intertwined, I was gripped and had to see it through to the end. I think the characteration of Rebus in this book is at its best, particularly because Rankin forces the character to look within himself more, and questions his motives for his actions, struggling with the good and bad within himself. You also had the interesting parralels between the 'evil' serial killer's perspective and the 'good' detective's perspective. I put this in inverted commas because it's not all black and white.
October 28, 2017
Black and Blue by Ian Rankin.
This Inspector rebus story is another reason for my being hooked on Scottish mysteries and other lengthy books (Icelandic & Swedish). Nothing worth finding is on the surface. Any clues have to be heavily investigated even if it means at Rebus's peril. The characters working with and against Rebus are revealed whether in an interrogation room or out on the field; making this story all the more realistic.
The ending is a completely different story and not one I expected. The author reveals on his Afterword notes that he was motivated by a real life case as yet possibly unsolved.
This book is for the dedicated crime/mystery lover that can and will set aside the time to delve into the action with Rebus. As I said before I'm hooked!
This Inspector rebus story is another reason for my being hooked on Scottish mysteries and other lengthy books (Icelandic & Swedish). Nothing worth finding is on the surface. Any clues have to be heavily investigated even if it means at Rebus's peril. The characters working with and against Rebus are revealed whether in an interrogation room or out on the field; making this story all the more realistic.
The ending is a completely different story and not one I expected. The author reveals on his Afterword notes that he was motivated by a real life case as yet possibly unsolved.
This book is for the dedicated crime/mystery lover that can and will set aside the time to delve into the action with Rebus. As I said before I'm hooked!
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