Inspector Rebus in Hide and Seek
Hard Boiled Scottish Detective in Crime Fiction , From Ian Rankin
Hide and Seek is an early crime book from a modern master of the police detective story, showing the world is full of mean streets and men to walk them.
Ian Rankin’s second novel featuring protagonist John Rebus, is set in the mean streets of Edinburgh. The story is rooted in the gritty reality surrounding the death of a junkie in a squat in one of Edinburgh’s slums. Rebus is a hard boiled detective, with a Scottish twist, and a loner with an almost obsessive desire for truth and justice.
The novel’s title, Hide and Seek sets up a game-playing theme. This is an early Rebus novel and it betrays Rankin’s lack of confidence in the power of the main story to hold the reader. Rankin’s word games center on character names, adding extra interest for the reader. We have a minor detective named Holmes and another called Watson, his more senior colleague in the police force, paying tribute to a doyen of crime fiction, Conan Doyle. Another refers to a Scottish council workman, Macbeth, contrasting his station in life with the Scottish king immortalized by William Shakespeare.
The range of supporting characters have enough depth to illustrate alternative viewpoints on the theme as well as providing convenient devices allowing Rankin to control the pace of the narrative.
Before the story starts, Rankin presents a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde hinting at the dual aspects of character; one with a public face and the other the underlying baser desires. Rankin further hints at this duality of nature and the narrative with the juxtaposition of names for the area where the body is found. Part of the area is a luxury development, referred to as Muir Village, to separate it from its roots and surroundings of the failed housing estate of Pilmuir; Rankin describes this as a “dumping ground”.
The dominant theme of duality of life is where although, money and possessions appear important, they are not enough to satisfy the underling human needs. Rebus shows one view with a search for meaning through religion and personal relationships, while he seems to reject the desire for the material. The bench in his apartment has a space where the washing machine used to be. His wife took the machine when their marriage broke up, illustrating Rebus’s lack of care for appearance and surface things and he now uses it to store wine.
This is view is opposed by the McCall brothers dissatisfaction with the good things in life. Rankin links the two characters with similar names. Tommy is a rich businessman, while Tony is only a policeman. Tony, unhappy in a home surrounded by expensive possessions and well-behaved children, prefers to roam the rough streets of his childhood. Tommy has more money and good things but these still do not satisfy him or people of his status as they seek seamier pursuits to give meaning to their life, such as dog fighting, bare knuckle fights and illicit perverted sex.
While young people such as Ronnie and Tracy somehow seem to have wasted their youth and their life. Then there is Charlie who rejects opportunity and a comfortable life, instead choosing to dabble in the seamier side of life. Rankin contrasts this with the young Holmes and his girlfriend, still with a degree of idealism and suggesting hope for the world.
Rankin conveys all this in style that paints a believable picture of the darker side of the celebrated Scottish city, and of the people who live there.
