Friday 19th Jan

Well, I made it to the doctor having fallen flat on my back on Wednesday morning. Battered and bruised, and with a few torn ligaments, but at least I got up there and home again.
So.. Black and Blue. I'm a good way into it, and it's always been the Rebus book that I rated. Maybe I'm very ignorent of scandalous Scottish crime, but I've always thought that the mix of real historical mystery in the book, with the new murders works incredibly well here. The real crime case here is the Bible John murders - which as I said the other day, happened in Scotland in the 60s. Whoever Bible John was, he ended his activities and the crime remains unsolved to this day. A few years ago a body was exhumed, and new DNA testing was done, but the crimes still remain unsolved, so clearly this person was not Bible John. But this must be what Rebus refers to when early on in the story he says that some people 'knew' who Bible John was. I would expect Rankin to have some fairly extensive contacts with his local force, and I dare say they would have told him of the suspicions of the officers who worked the case.
Anyhow it's things of that type that make this book so good. It stinks of reality, with all the grit and grime that that entails. One of the most interesting things about it from my point of view is that at one point, Rebus visits Partick Police Station in Glasgow. I lived in Partick when I lived in Glasgow, and I know this station pretty well, 'cos it was right across the road from the bottom of the road that I lived on. It's a somehow squat looking modern building, but this is probably an optical illusion because Thornwood Avenue (where I lived) was a pretty nigh on vertical hill - hike up the first bit, then you get a flat break to catch your breath on, then gird your loins for the summit, which was really very heavy going on foot. So as you came down the road you would be looking down on to the roof of the police station. Looking straight out, you had a view of the expressway going in to the centre of Glasgow, but far more dominating than that was the view of one of the last ship yards on the Clyde. You could hear the horns of the ships as they came and went - it was a most interesting place to live.
Anyhow, Rebus goes to Partick Police Station, and ends up sharing a coffee with the officer he's come to see out of a vending machine. I can't swear that Ian Rankin ever stood on Thornwood Avenue looking at Partick Police Station, but I'd swear blind I saw the back of those vending machines on the odd occasion! I think it gives a bit of added edge when you know the places that a books' setting is in. You can visualise it that bit more vividly. But let's be honest here, Partick Police Station could be any modern police station, and you aren't going to loose anything from the story.
They did make a tv adaptation of this a while back - I think it was one of the John Hannah Rebus' versions. I'm not entirely sure that Ken Stott is the perfect Rebus, but he's one hell of a lot better than John Hannah. Talk about miscasting. Now if he'd been Brian Holmes, who is the first of Rebus's long term sergeants, that might have worked. And again, in this book there's a secondary plot revolving around an old case that Rebus was involved in, when he was a DS, that may or may not have involved corruption on the part of the senior officer. Holmes himself is loosing his grip on the job, and lost it in person with a suspect Mental Minto, so for saving Holmes from potential prosecution, Holmes reviews the old case. In tandem with this, Bible John himself, back from an American oil job in the States has returned to his old stamping ground to review the work of his disciple, the serial killer that Rebus is chasing. There's another Rebus book, Knots and Crosses, the title of which really should be sitting on this book in a way (although, it's entirely appropriate to the book which it does indeed title) because of the fine interweaving of story lines - and you've got to hand it to Rankin, 'cos they hang together perfectly and you can really keep them mentally straight and all your ducks in a row as you read. You can always tell a poorly written book when you find yourself saying 'Huh? Hang on, where was X supposed to be three days ago when Y was found head down in the cistern..'

So as you can tell, I'm enjoying re-reading this. I'd reccomend it to anyone, as I would any of the Rebus books. But if you're going to read them, best to read them in the order in which they were writtten, so you can follow the development of Rebus's life. There are back references that you'd miss out on in later books. Well, I daresay I'll be writing more as I go along, but my knee is getting pretty sore sitting so still as I type this. So I'm going to go stretch it!