The Naming Of The Dead

How you rate this Inspector Rebus story may depend to some extent on what you think of the solution to the mystery, which is obviously something a reviewer ought not to give away. On the other hand it will take you nearly 500 very enjoyable pages before you get there. So far as this reader is concerned, there is nothing much wrong with the solution. I can't persuade myself that it is the job of a detective story to turn out like a factual police investigation in real life, and although the outcome should not be preposterous it ought to be imaginative, and it is imaginative here.

I have no idea whether Ian Rankin belongs to the Agatha Christie school of whodunit plotting, or to the Raymond Chandler school. We know from Chandler himself that he wrote most of his Marlowe tales without knowing who the murderer was: Mrs Christie was not so forthcoming so far as I am aware, but surely she must have had the final denouements in mind from the outset and structured the rest of it round them so that we can be as amazed as the respectful and silent gatherings who listen to Poirot or Miss Marple explaining all over ten or a dozen pages. Where Rankin seems to me to side with Chandler is in making the rest of the story and the characterisation more significant in their own right than they are in the solution-focused Christie style, and I find that to my own liking. In fact this is the first Rebus story I have ever read, but it will not be the last. The glum, dogged and cantankerous old corner-cutter is getting on in years, now within a year of compulsory retirement and obviously facing a bleak outlook when that comes, as there is nothing much in his life except the job. His portrayal is sympathetic and quite convincing if not exactly delineated in as much depth as Hamlet, so is that of his oppo Siobhan Clarke, and convincing also, if less sympathetic, is that of the other main players. The storyline is absolutely excellent in my own opinion, and it held my interest completely through what is quite a long book. Rankin has true storytelling technique, the result of experience as well as of talent. Links between episodes are very artfully done and if one's attention wanders at all it is liable to mean rereading a couple of paragraphs. The background in July 2005 - the Gleneagles summit of the G8, the British Olympics bid for 2012 and the 7/7 bombings in London - is inspired, and the scene-setting in the author's native Edinburgh is as authentic as we would expect. The writing is of high quality, but in case anyone was wondering, a `rammy' is a fight and `Shug' is `Hugh'.

One detail in particular has not worked out in quite the way Rankin obviously expected, and Mr Blair's brainwave of obtaining `loans' rather than donations to the Labour party (the idea being to avoid declaration) blew back in his face in spectacular fashion. This very excusable misprognostication does affect the credibility of one aspect of the final outcome, I suppose, but at the end of the day this is fiction, and the historical backdrop is very convincing by and large. I don't believe I would have wanted the story to resemble the miserable real-life murder investigations that I have become all too familiar with. There is an appropriate standard for different kinds of things, or `Est modus in rebus' as they say in the Classics, and that suits me very well provided the narrator is good enough at his job. I was sorry to come to the end of this book. Dear old Rebus may be bowing out, but I have all his previous adventures to get to know, and I am looking forward to it.

Readable, but slow and ultimately marred by ludicrous plot (0/2 people found this helpful)

Retains reader's interest (at least for long-time Revus fan like me) but overlong and clunky, especially in its efforts to link crime story to anti-G8 demonstrations of 2005 in Edinburgh. Subplots with Rebus versus Special Branch commander Steelforth and DS Siobhan Clarke and her liberal anti-globalization parents a bit predictable. Real let down, however, is the sheer ridiculousness of the plot when all finally revealed - crime fans like myself are willing to suspend some belief for the sake of twists-and-turns, atmosphere and thrill but this one is plain stupid.

Classic Rebus (0/2 people found this helpful)

You really sense here that something is ending. Rebus is reaching retirement and although there is anger here, just as in the previous books, it is tempered by melancholy and some regret. You feel that Rankin may be stepping it up a gear for Siobhan, as she gets much more stage time in this story.

Set against the background of the G8 summit this is really a story about the sacrifices we are prepared to make for family, and whether those sacrifices, so meaningful to us, mean anything to those we love, or indeed change anything in the wider world. A thoughtful story, but with flashes of the grit and rage that makes Rebus such an interesting character.

coincidence abounds (0/1 people found this helpful)

As usual a crafted and enjoyable Rebus story. However there are too many coincidences between the characters in the plot for my liking.

A Scottish Tale (1/2 people found this helpful)

A worthy addition to the Rebus series, not his best, but again you cannot fail to smile at some of the boozy inspector's antics and quotes. He's the anti-hero we'd all love to be (if we didn't have a mortgage to pay and kids to feed), preferring the company of the local gangster or barfly to his contemporaries in the force. Doing it his way and some.
The backdrop of the Scottish G8 and 7/7 London bombings gives this murder hunt a very up to the minute feel, but in some ways it is over-researched and contains too much detail on the former event. I enjoyed this book but did find it a tad over long and to be honest I'm still unsure why he gave Jacko a good kicking in the epilogue. If someone could enlighten me to save me re-reading parts I'd be most grateful!
Not highly recommended for the slightly convoluted plot, which almost seems secondary, but more so for the colourful characterization of the DI you'd like to share a pint with and his faithful sidekick DS Clarke, who starts falling into (his) bad ways. Will we soon see Siobhan get her own book one day...don't bet against it. Though "Clarke" doesn't have the same poetic edge does it!

The Naming Of The Dead

Ian Rankin

Reader Reviews:

MODUS IN REBUS (3/5 people found this helpful)

Readable, but slow and ultimately marred by ludicrous plot (0/2 people found this helpful)

Classic Rebus (0/2 people found this helpful)

coincidence abounds (0/1 people found this helpful)

A Scottish Tale (1/2 people found this helpful)

Similar Products

Categories