posted on 22 Nov 2023

The Black Book by Ian Rankin

Published in 1993, this is, I think, the fifth book of Ian Rankin’s to feature John Rebus – a detective so beset by personal problems, weaknesses and dubious professional standards that it’s sometimes hard to believe he’s reached the status of Inspector in the police force (although thirty years on, the more contemporary revelations about police recruitment and corruption makes Rebus’ behaviour seem much more mainstream).

Ian Rankin’s debt to fellow Scottish crime realist, William McIlvanney is well documented and between them they have been credited (along with the likes of Val McDermid and Denise Mina) for the creation of a distinct genre that has been tagged ‘Tartan Noir’. These are books that make the description ‘gritty’ seem soft – they are set in the Scottish mean-streets of poverty, cruel criminality, heavy drinking and a disregard for authority.

The problem anyone will have in reviewing The Black Book is that so much is crammed into the plot that it makes summary something of a nonsense – there’s a danger you end up precising the whole story and cramming the review with way too many spoilers. So, on this occasion, I’m not even going to venture into the plot but fall back on the rather neatly contrived summary from Publishers Weekly in their review of the book when it was released:

“His ex-con brother arrives in town just as Rebus, blown off by his doctor ladyfriend, returns to his own pad where, surrounded by his student tenants, he has to sleep on the couch. He is similarly buffeted on the professional front: a colleague is brained at a restaurant owned by an Elvis enthusiast; a man is stabbed in a butcher shop; a convicted child molester returns to the city; the bullet that killed an unknown man five years ago was fired from a gun that Rebus has unwisely and unwittingly purchased. With the addition of missing vans, a kidnapped man left hanging upside down from a railway bridge, good beer and protection money, Rankin offers about four times as much plot here as in his earlier Strip Jack.”

 In truth, the fact that the book feels like a slightly lumpy, overstuffed sofa is probably it’s biggest failing. There can be no argument about Rankin’s skill in storytelling (although even he struggles at times to keep all the plates in this one spinning) and the excitement and jeopardy levels rarely dip. But, by the end of story (which you could argue has all its loose ends rather too neatly tied up), the reader is likely to be exhausted.

What many Rebus fans will really remember this book for is the first appearance of Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, who will become a close (although not romantically so) friend of Rebus in subsequent books. It’s also the first full outing for the sinister Edinburgh crime tzar, Gerald "Big Ger" Cafferty who will become Rankin’s very own Moriarty in the later Rebus novels.

It struck me that this would be a very good novel to take on a long journey because it would easily allow you to lose yourself in the labyrinths of the plot without demanding overly much intellectual exercise. The story is complex but Rankin does spell everything out for you – there are very few ambiguities to puzzle over and, complex as it is, the signposting is always firmly in place.

Paperbacks of the book are cheap and easily available, whether you want to buy new or second hand.

 

Terry Potter

November 2023