"He went over to the hi-fi. After a drink, he liked to listen to the Stones. Women, relationships, and colleagues had come and gone, but the Stones had always been there. He put the album on and poured himself a last drink. The guitar riff, one of easily half a dozen in Keith's tireless repertoire, kicked the album off. I don't have much, Rebus, thought, but I have this." (Rankin 38)I find it ironic that out of all the books I could've picked this week, I picked Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin, which is apparently named after a Stones album. So after reading Keith Richards' autobiography last week, I have another book filled with Stones allusions.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. I like the Stones. What I don't like is that Rankin's books are getting more and more complicated and less intense. After Chapter 21 he had lost me. It started with a double suicide on the bridge and wound up to be a novel full of acronyms of different parts of the Scottish government (I think...).
It's a very complex book, and I wouldn't call Rankin a crime novelist anymore. After reading approximately 4 books of his that involved politics, I would call him a political intrigue novelist. I don't like films about politics because I forget names and functions, but I definitely don't appreciate books about it, because it takes me so much longer to plough through it.
It's a pity, because Rankin describes my surrogate home town so well! Maybe Mo Hayder should move to Edinburgh, because she knows exactly what my favourite crime novel should look like.
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