Ian Rankin’s “Rebus: Capital Crimes”
“Capital Crimes” is a three book collection about a Scottish Detective Rebus, who is in many ways a typical semi-drunken, aging maverick detective (but then, there were ten novels in the series prior to this collection, so he might have been quite different in book one for all I know), but somehow Rankin makes it work. Rebus doesn’t like fancy new technology, but he has junior detectives to help with him with that; he prefers to puzzle out the relations between people, and thus their motives for their behavior, which keeps the novel humming along. It becomes easier to forgive Rebus for his sins as he reflects upon his own need to change, and the professional or personal tensions between the detectives are interesting, too.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if one of the women detectives, Siobhan, is being groomed as a replacement character for the series. The last book has Rebus thinking a lot about his upcoming retirement, and each of three novels gave more time to Siobhan, and who would be her allies and enemies in the police department. She has Rebus’ maverick impulses, but without the drinking problem.
The endings of the novels are not easy; the murderer is caught, but there is often evil, or at least unpleasantness, lurking about in the background that Rebus can’t do anything about.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if one of the women detectives, Siobhan, is being groomed as a replacement character for the series. The last book has Rebus thinking a lot about his upcoming retirement, and each of three novels gave more time to Siobhan, and who would be her allies and enemies in the police department. She has Rebus’ maverick impulses, but without the drinking problem.
The endings of the novels are not easy; the murderer is caught, but there is often evil, or at least unpleasantness, lurking about in the background that Rebus can’t do anything about.