The Flood by Rankin, Ian

by Ian Rankin

Genres: Audiobook

Paperback

About the author

AKA 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

Reviews

[Andrew Vivian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really did not like this book

[Alan Hall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting. You can see it was written early in his writing career.

[Mark]

I really can't stand it that the details of this book cannot be edited. Because it only shows that the book has ZERO pages???

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some people seem to struggle to write both a male and a female protagonist. I feel this is one of those cases, where the kinds of things relevant to each characters perspectives seem strained by the writer's own experience. While the information omitted during the first section of Mary was important to be revealed later, it felt unnatural for the character to never think about what had happened to her. Sandy, meanwhile, feels uncomfortable to read from, as if he is resisting his own character, or at least that was my impression.

Perhaps another reader would enjoy this style, but I felt loose connection to the characters, and often was confused as to whose perspective a specific scene was written from.

[Alun · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a sort of coming of age novel based in a gloomy post industrial era where the pits have closed and there is no work and only little hope. It's very interesting how Rankin brings Christianity into his books

[Erica Smythe · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first of Ian Rankin's books - a good read - interesting characters and story line.
The setting is a bit bleak - not much happening in a declining coal mining town.

[K D Davies · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was alright. Not one of my favourites

[Jill Andrews]

Pretty impressive that he wrote this so young.