From The Sunset

The last I read of DI John Rebus, he was frantically trying to save the life of his nemesis, the gangster Gerald Cafferty, in a Scottish hospital.  That installment of the Rebus series was Exit Music (2007), and as rides into the sunset for fictional detectives go, the concluding scenario didn't exactly echo Holmes&Moriarty grappling life and death over a mountain waterfall.  But the exit in Music did have one clear advantage.  Unlike Holmes's final appointment at Reichenbach Falls, it allowed for the possibility of Rebus's return.

II.

The possibility becomes fact in the 18th novel of the Rebus series, Standing In Another Man's Grave.  Author Ian Rankin presents Detective Inspector Rebus now as pretty much the Rebus of old: he still drinks and smokes too much; he likes the rock music, preferably on vinyl; his sense of humour leans toward bad jokes; and he is still obsessive and relentless in the pursuit of justice.

But in the time Rebus has been away, other things have changed. For starters, he is now a civilian (retired) employee with the police, assigned to the cold-case unit. This means he has to play nice with careerist officers like James Page.  "'You've changed a bit,' Rebus said. Page looked at him blankly. 'Led Zeppelin,' Rebus explained. 'Guitarist'." <1>  Page's humourless bafflement leads Rebus to further refer to him as "Dazed and Confused", and later, "Physical Graffiti".  

And then there's DI Malcolm Fox, the head of the internal affairs department, who has become suspicious of Rebus's continued association with gangsters like Cafferty.  Fox thinks Rebus a maverick dinosaur, and thinks even less of Rebus's plan to reapply to the police as a serving officer.

III.

One of the attractions of the Rebus series has always been Rankin's acute attention to land and life in contemporary Scotland. In Another Man, Rebus follows a missing-persons case well away from his home base of Edinburgh.  With Rebus at the wheel of his trusty Saab, Rankin guides us up into the northern Scottish coastline.  "The landscape grew more alien, almost lunar...now and then there would be a spectacular cove with pristine white sand and blue sea... [Rebus] felt utterly alone in the world. No traffic sounds; no other humans".  

IV.

The eventual resolution of the case turns a whodunit into a thriller about how the guilty will be caught.  It's all suspenseful, page-turning work.  As Rebus replies at one point to being a "stuck" recording:  "Maybe so, but the song's still a smash".  Standing In Another Man's Grave proves it.
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<1>Rankin, Ian. Standing In Another Man's Grave. Orion Books, 2014.