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Title: The Question of Blood by Ian Rankin, Michael Page ISBN: 1-59086-489-1 Publisher: Brilliance Audio Pub. Date: 01 February, 2004 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 8 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.41 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: As Good As It Gets
Comment: Ian Rankin has written his 19th book. This is the 16th novel in the Inspector Rebus series. Inspector John Rebus is a man with a rakish sense of humour and a dry wit. He is a loner. He has a past, and we are given a glimpse every now and then. He is as finely wrought a character as I have seen. He is a man after my own heart. I have always wanted to be a spy in the CIA and this comes close enough.
Rebus is in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh. It appears that Rebus has scalded both hands and infection has set in. Did this happen as he says by putting his hands in scalding water for too long a period of time? It would appear that this might be too coincidental since Fairstone, a man who was stalking Detective Sargeant Siobhan Clarke, has just died in a fire. Siobhan is also wondering if Rebus came to her defense and killed the man.
Detective Clarke is here in hospital to relate to Rebus the horrible events that have just happened in South Queensbury. An ex-SAS or army man had walked into a private school, turned his gun on three young men and then killed himself. What was this slaughter all about? What was the motive, was it revenge?
Rebus is called upon by Detective Inspector Bobby Hogan to come to Queensbury to assist him in the investigation. Rebus is an ex-army man himself and may have insight into the why's and where's.
Siobhan must accompany him since he cannot drive. His hands are bandaged and he is taking medication with his whiskey to stave off the pain.
There is no mystery about whodunit. A creep, a loner, an army veteran who got his kicks out of terrifying the local teenagers in his speedboat. A man gone mad? Were the killings random? Why did this man bypass other rooms and go directly to the student lounge? With his superiors breathing down his neck, Rebus immerses himself into the investigation. He finds a family link and is drawn into the questions, "why does a man kill, is it a matter of revenge or a question of blood?"
This is about as good as it gets in a Rebus novel. The characters are finely drawn, dark and gritty. The storyline is carefully detailed. We get a closer and more intimate look at Rebus the man. Bring 'em on Ian Rankin, you have only just begun! prisrob
Rating: 5
Summary: Rankin Back on Form
Comment: Rankin's latest Rebus novel opens in the aftermath of two crimes. The first is a seemingly random shooting in a private school, killing two pupils, injuring one and leaving dead at his own hands the apparent perpetrator, ex SAS soldier Lee Herdman. (Obvious echoes here of the Dunblane tragedy). The second is the death in a suspicious fire of minor crook Martin Fairstone. Fairstone spent part of his last evening alive with Rebus and had been engaged in a nasty campaign of molestation against his junior Colleague, DS Siobhan Clarke. Rebus, moreover, has no very convincing story to tell about how he got the rather nasty new burns on his hands and lower arms...
The question-mark over Rebus involvement in Fairstone's death is accentuated by the novel's theme of damaged ex-special forces men, a theme that recalls the very first Rebus book, "Knots and Crosses" which confronted Rebus still more directly with the demons left in place by the flunked SAS training of his youth. Here there are four characters with army pasts. The first is the dead Herdman whose SAS background brings the splendidly sinister and disagreeable army investigators, Whiteread and Simms, out of the woodwork to poke around and engage in some heavy duty mutual antagonism with Rebus. The second is of course Rebus himself, Whiteread and Simms letting slip to Siobhan that Rebus had while Herdman had not been "flagged... as a potential psycho" by the army authorities. The third and most obviously and hopelessly damaged is Robert Niles, friend of Herdman's, now in a high security psychiatric hospital after losing it completely and killing his wife. Finally Niles links Herdman to Douglas Brimson, ex RAF and now a flying instructor who hits on Siobhan, a move guaranteed to magnify Rebus's initial distrust...
The story is, much of the time, more a whydunnit that a whodunit as Rebus and his colleagues try to figure out just what drove Herdman to go to the school on the terrible day in question. (I'm not sure quite how plausible this is. Would the financially stretched Scottish police force really invest so much manpower into looking into the state of mind of a dead man when the case seemed so cut and dried with the perpetrator safely dead and no need to secure a conviction? I guess maybe with an incident as sensitive and difficult as a school massacre they just might...) As always the case gets under Rebus' skin and his obsession with solving it is presented skilfully enough to infect the reader too.
This book shares the core property of all Rankin's Rebus books of complete and hopeless unputdownability. Various factors contribute to this effect. The first is the plotting: like other Rebus novels this has a beautifully complex murky plot but one that unfolds with seemingly effortless clarity. Then there is the conviction of the characterization, even the most minor characters springing vividly to life. Then, as with all good detective stories there is the sense of place: here Rankin has few rivals and makes Edinburgh very thoroughly his own. Here this geographical focus is extended to South Queensferry, the small satellite town bordering the Forth estuary at the point where the bridges cross over from Fife, home both to Herdman and the school where he dies. Add the continuing tease of the relationship between Rebus and Clarke, obvious soulmates whom a lesser writer would have packed off to bed together several volumes ago and it's no surprise you keep turning the pages.
Probably this doesn't deserve to be ranked among the best Rebus novels, like "Set in Darkness" and "The Falls" but it's still a real return to form after the slightly disappointing "Resurrection Men". (Oh and come on now, Mr Rankin, get cracking, we're ready for another one now.)
Rating: 5
Summary: Terrific
Comment: A former soldier charges into a high school and shoots three students, leaving two for dead, and then kills himself. John Rebus and his partner Siobhan Clarke set out to investigate why this man did what he did, all the while dealing with allegations that Rebus himself has murdered a local thug who had been harassing Clarke. A Question of Blood explores the two mysteries, twines them togehter, all the while telling an excellent, compelling, gripping story. Ian Rankin is a talented writer--the writing is good, the dialog is excellent and the story works, keeping you guessing up until the last pages of the novel. This is the first of Rankin's novels that I have read and it certainly is impressive. Rebus is an complicated and entertaining character--a bit of a cynic, and certainly not one to tow the line. All in all, A Question of Blood is a terrific mystery.
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Title: Playing with Fire : A Novel of Suspense by Peter Robinson ISBN: 006019877X Publisher: William Morrow Pub. Date: 20 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: The Murder Room by P. D. James ISBN: 1400041414 Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Pub. Date: 18 November, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: The Narrows: A Novel by Michael Connelly ISBN: 0316155306 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: 03 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Resurrection Men : An Inspector Rebus Novel by Ian Rankin ISBN: 0316608491 Publisher: Little, Brown Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: The Babes in the Wood: A Chief Inspector Wexford Mystery by Ruth Rendell ISBN: 140004930X Publisher: Crown Publishers Pub. Date: 21 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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