[Continued from page 1 of 2]
Living
in "real time," aging at the same rate as the author, Rebus grows tired
sometimes, but still likes being on the force. "Without the job," Mr.
Rankin writes in the new book, "he almost ceased to exist."
"The Naming of the Dead" might be the most ambitious book in the
series, almost too much so. There are so many elements, so much going
on all at once, that only a master like Mr. Rankin could manage to get
it all to make sense at the end of the day.
It is set in July 2005 at the G8 Summit Conference in Edinburgh.
President Bush is there, along with Tony Blair, other world leaders,
members of Parliament, and 250,000 protesters, most of whom are making
a party of it, but they include small groups of anarchists and
neo-Nazis who want only to create nasty mischief. Among the throng are
the usual angry beautiful people — George Clooney, Susan Sarandon,
Bianca Jagger, et al.) who travel in their private jets to protest fuel
emissions.
One of those attending the meeting apparently commits suicide, going
off the castle's very high wall. The fact that he screamed the whole
way down suggests to Rebus that, just possibly, his plunge might have
had help, but his superior wants to close the case immediately.
Meanwhile, Rebus has just begun searching for the killer of a
convicted rapist, though most of the force would prefer to give a
special award to whoever did it. Rebus persists in his hunt for the
murderer, but make no mistake: He despises the victim as much as
anyone. As the autopsy is being performed on "the Rape Beast," the
pathologist tells Rebus, "No one's born bad, John." Rebus replies,
"Well, nobody makes them do bad things, either."
When another murder occurs, Rebus fears they may have a serial
killer on their hands, and then the political wrangling intensifies,
and the mother of Siobhan Clarke, his partner and protégé, is assaulted
by one of the riot police, and then ...
It's a big, complex book, and getting it all tied up must have been
as much of a challenge for Mr. Rankin as solving an intricate rebus.
Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in
Manhattan and the series editor of the annual "Best American Mystery
Stories." He can be reached at ottopenzler@mysteriousbookshop.com.
Continued
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