The sixteenth novel about the hard-boiled Edinburgh detective sees him rubbing shoulders with the great and the good at the G-8 conference in what is Rankin's best yet.
The sixteenth novel about the hard-boiled Edinburgh detective sees him rubbing shoulders with the great and the good at the G-8 conference in what is Rankin's best novel yet.
It's Friday 1st July, and DI John Rebus is attending his younger brother's funeral;
"...dead in a shiny-handled box at the age of fifty-four, Scotland's mortality rate that of a Third World nation. Lifestyle, diet, genes -- plenty of theories....it was 'sudden' -- as if that made a difference.
Sudden meant that Rebus hadn't been able to say goodbye."
That haunting echo of survivor guilt is reminiscent of Arnaldur Indridason's Erlandur novels, and gives The Naming of the Dead an extra dimension.
Rebus is on temporary compassionate leave from the preparations for the G-8 conference. The official venue is Auchterarder, but the surrounding events such as the preliminary meetings where all the real work is done, the anti-capitalist demonstrations that threaten to bring Edinburgh to a standstill, and above all the Live Earth concert and Bob Geldof's exhortations to march on Scotland mean that not only has all leave been cancelled, but that police and Special Branch from all over the UK have been drafted in, not only blurring the lines of jurisdiction, but also meaning that it becomes hard to tell the real cops from the spooks and the fakes.
But even at the funeral, Rebus is fielding calls from Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke, who tells him of the discovery of clothing at the Clootie Well, a local shrine near the conference site (the word 'clootie' is a Scottish corruption of 'clothing') that indicate that the recent murder of an ex-con -- unloved and unmourned, but still to be investigated -- is but one of a series.
Even as they are investigating the site, Rebus and Clarke clash with the head of Special Branch, who tries to usher them off the site, claiming national interest's prevail.
Within hours Rebus and Steelforth of Special Branch will clash again, this time over the body of an MP who has fallen to his death from a grand dinner at Edinburgh. As about the only police not drafted into the G-8 preparations, it's inevitable that Rebus will be summoned to a suspicious death.
Clarke has taken a couple of hours out to be with her parents, who like many Sixties Children have come to the demo and are camping at the 'official' protester's camp site, set aside by the council.
Before long, Clarke's parents will become her Achilles Heel, as Rebus' old enemy Big Ger Caffery starts to use the police in his own personal vendetta against a local councillor. When Siobhan's mother is hurt by a police baton, it becomes hard to tell who is friend and who is foe.
The Naming of the Dead is a big, complex novel that shows how far Rankin has brought Rebus since his first novel, Knots and Crosses, with which it is interesting to compare. It actually grows more powerful on reflection, particularly the relationship between brothers and loss, and should should be read slowly, and thought about.
