I'm not a big fan of crime novels. Up until now the only two detectives that truly interested me are Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and Jack Caffery (Mo Hayder). Both characters spike my interest for different reasons; Sherlock because he's an expert in deductive reasoning but also a drug addict. What's even more fascinating about him is that his creator hated him because readers didn’t want anything from him but Sherlock Holmes. That's why he attempted to kill his character off, but the public didn't let him and he had to resurrect him. The interaction between the character and the creator is fascinating in that sense. Caffery is interesting because he has experienced a horrible trauma when he was a child and he has never recovered from it. He’s a Byronic hero and I like my men to be as Byronic as possible.
Detective Rebus can now be added to my favourite detectives list. Not because he is such an enthralling character, not in the first book at least. It’s because I have something in common with him and that’s our love for books:
"His eyes beheld beauty not in reality but in the printed word. Standing in the waiting-room, he realized that in his life he had accepted secondary experience -- the experience of reading someone else's thoughts -- over real life." (Rankin, Knots & Crosses)
Also, it's because I love reading references of the city I live in. Ian Rankin's novels are famously set in Edinburgh. The city I've called my home for the past six months.
There’s not much to say about the story itself. It’s very simple and not very refreshing or different. For next week I’m reading Rankin’s second Rebus novel to see if he can hold my interest for more than one book, but I especially hope he manages to come up with a really good story.
No comments:
Post a Comment