Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


"Rebus [...] was feeling like the detective in a cheap thriller, and wished that he could turn to the last page and stop all this confusion, all the death and the madness and the spinning in his ears."

Well, I appreciate the author's self-referentiality. While Knots and Crosses (1987), the first installment in Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series, is not a cheap thriller, it is not a remarkable one either. About fifteen years ago I read two books in the series and found them moderately interesting and readable so I was curious about the first novel in the sequence. Alas, nothing particularly distinguishes this book. The Rebus series is customarily classified as "Tartan Noir," i.e. a genre of dark procedurals based in Scotland. I am spoiled by Denise Mina's novels, which are better written, more interesting, and - most importantly - not as clichéd as Rankin's works.

We meet Rebus, a Detective Sergeant on the Edinburgh police force, as he visits his father's grave in Fife. He then pays a visit to his brother Michael, a hypnotist who enjoys quite a successful career giving public shows. There is not much closeness between the brothers. Rebus is divorced and his eleven-year-old daughter, Samantha, visits him occasionally. Michael and Sammy end up playing important roles in the story.

Rebus is on the case that has shaken Edinburgh: several young girls have been abducted and strangled, but not sexually abused. The murderer seems to be sending clues to the investigating officers - knots and crosses. Rebus is haunted by his years in the military, particularly by the events that occurred while he was serving in the SAS (Special Air Squadron) unit, and the detective's "inner fragility" is one of the recurring motifs in the story. Another subplot recounts an affair between Rebus and Ms. Templer, a police liaison officer.

When reading the novel I felt that I had encountered the same plot in many other books: the detective with a troubled and traumatic past, the clues offered by the serial murderer, racing against time to save the most recent victim - all of these are common clichés in thrillers. True, Mr. Rankin offers a hard look at Edinburgh's criminal underbelly, and there is some tension in the plot, but the novel is quite far from satisfying the author's ambitions as evidenced by his reference to Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. Moreover, the denouement is based on a rather cheap plot device and comes as a sort of anticlimax.

Two-and-a-half stars.




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