Ian Rankin: Knots and Crosses

Ian Rankin

Knots and Crosses

This review is based upon the German translation by Ellen Schlootz.

Christina says:

A serial killer is haunting Edinburgh. His victims are teenage girls. Police inspector John Rebus is part of the task force formed to hunt down the murderer. He doesn’t play a leading part in the operation but was condemned by his boss to look for clues in the relevant files. But the killer has long since allotted him a much more important role in the events.

When I took Knots and Crosses from the bookshelf, I was ready for a really dark mystery in the best noir tradition. But when I was halfway through the book, I was more than a bit disappointed by this Police Procedural, the first volume in the Rebus series and my first encounter with Ian Rankin. The case that should have been solved was only mentioned en passant. Instead, I waded up to my knees in the hero's depression; I had to learn about his clichéd rotten family and had to put up with his lamenting about his mess of a life. The book didn't get any better in the second half. I rather felt like reading a later book by Patricia Cornwell, only there wasn't even a yummy recipe for tomato sauce to take away for me this time. Partly Rankin's prose was a compensation for the agony, but it couldn't make up for the confusing plot and the unlikable protagonist.

Rankin doesn’t have to offer anything original. Maybe you can still write a solid mystery using the typical constellation of the frustrated cop fighting the bureaucratic authorities and the crazy killer, seasoned with a pinch of unscrupulous media, but in my opinion the author failed at doing this.

I think I'll better avoid him in the future.

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Christina

Last changes: 12-04-04