by Craig Cabell
Do we learn more about Rebus’s personality in Let It Bleed, with regard to making a connection with Ian Rankin’s personality, that is?
Yes. Rankin was having fun with the character, cherry-picking little segments of his life and plopping them into the plot.
‘But when Rebus’s mother had been ill that last time, she’d begged his father for release.’
Let It Bleed
We have already learnt of the death of Rankin’s mother when he was at university and, in a flashback scene, we experience an equally painful scene for young Rebus, where he endures the dying wishes of his mother. Rebus’s father is at odds with the whole thing, just as any other husband/father would be, but if we look at the reality for Rankin’s father, it would be the second time he would lose his wife.
Although the scene in Let It Bleed is just a flashback, there is much emotion and one can’t help but make the comparison between reality and fantasy. We know that Rankin will use the odd image from his own life to colour the characters and situations he creates. It’s a natural thing for an author to do. But although Rankin can make Rebus endure such a thing from his own past, he turns things round and plays with him, distancing himself from Rebus, because the way Rebus breaks the news to his daughter that she had inadvertently smuggled bounty money out of a prison and given it to a bounty hunter (thus causing somebody’s death) is less than tactful. In fact, it is stupid. But Rankin would have found that funny. It’s part of the fun he has when writing a Rebus novel and part of the distancing he creates between him and Rebus.
Let It Bleed is a good read, its political undertones are plausible and the way the powerful and influential scare the echelons of St Leonard’s is interesting, because they don’t scare Rebus!
Rebus immerses himself deeper into the spider’s web of political intrigue that is his case. He is accused – in different ways – of being selfish, but he gets so absorbed in a case we can forgive him this, especially when it exposes everybody else as a bunch of spineless bastards. He becomes blinkered and when the war is over, he looks at the corpses scattered around him and thinks, Did I have something to do with that? He’s not totally guilty of being unfeeling, because he is not conscious of it.
There is one major criticism of Let It Bleed: all the threads are pulled together without the reader being given the opportunity to do that for themselves. There is something a little Sherlock Holmes-like, or maybe Poirot-like, in the way Rebus sounds off to the all-powerful at the end of the novel. You are made to feel that Rebus is being deliberately too speculative but it turns out he isn’t. There are certain things he wouldn’t know and to chance his hand as much as he does is a sure-fire liberty on the wrapping up of the story.
Ultimately, Let It Bleed showcases how perceptive Rebus is, but you do question that perception because you couldn’t work it out yourself. Being in a big room full of suspects, there is something Agatha Christie/Conan Doyle-like in the revelatory summing up, which again echoes great novels past. But aside from this, Let It Bleed was a very good book and a worthy follow-up to The Black Book and Mortal Causes.
‘Sammy gave him a good luck kiss as he left the flat.
“We’re not so very different,” she told him.’
Let It Bleed
Let It Bleed is a deeper book than its predecessors. The main characters are more complex, the supporting cast – especially tattooed thug Rico Briggs and smack-head rich kid Kirstie Kennedy – are both visual and engaging, but we find out a little more about Rebus too.
Returning to the theme of selfishness for a moment, there is an interesting point in the book where the Farmer tells Rebus – to his face – that he is selfish. He explains that he has had a bad weekend fielding scorn from certain dignitaries Rebus had been pestering in his investigations, especially when Rebus was meant to be taking a break (unofficial suspension). Perhaps Rebus feels bullied. He was, after all, only trying to do his job, but even Gill Templer thinks he had approached things the wrong way. She’s worried for him, believing that he could lose his job by getting too involved with such important people, but that disappears with the outburst: ‘I’m your immediate superior! I’m in the post barely a week, and already you’ve caused the most unholy ructions.’ Templer still has feelings for Rebus, albeit suppressed, but she has now experienced how awkward he can be on a case for his superiors, and it is up to her to decide if she wants to continue putting up with a man who gets the job done well, but at certain – sometimes personal – costs.
Rebus is not an easy man to deal with, let alone like or love. He is a maverick, a loner, a lateral thinker who short-circuits the system and gets results. Because of all that he is frustrating and people have to pick up the pieces, but he gets results that others can’t.
Moving away from the character of Rebus for a moment, there is a complex and political storyline in Let It Bleed, which builds and gives little away until the end of the novel.
Rankin is not an overtly political writer – well, certainly not in the early days – but when he did tackle the theme there was always a blue-tinge to his collar (working class not Conservative), which quite naturally stems from his formative years. He understands the human grief and suffering behind large chunks of Scottish industry closing down, such as the mines in Fife, Rosyth Dockyard, the list goes on. Indeed, this political sub-theme is expanded in Rankin’s following novel Black and Blue: underhand dealings to rebuild Scotland’s industry, as seen in Let It Bleed. Also, Rankin was a much more confident and competent writer at the time of writing Let It Bleed. Loyal readers knew what to expect from the Rebus series now and Rankin knew what he wanted to deliver.
So was Rankin suddenly writing to a formula? No, that would be too harsh. What he did do was weave in two or three storylines – different strands – and carry the reader through many twists and turns before arriving at his final conclusion. If Rebus’s summing up was a little too far-fetched then this was simply because Rankin hadn’t fully developed his new style.
Rebus’s story continued with a grand tour of Scotland. It would be another book that would take its title from a Rolling Stones album, Black and Blue, and Rankin would crack that new way of writing so well that his ultimate goal of recognition for his literary efforts would finally be fulfilled.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BLACK AND BLUE
Oil, a central theme in Black and Blue, is sometimes referred to as ‘black gold’. Couple that with the phrase ‘The Boys in Blue’ (i.e. the Police Force) and you have the black and blue of the title.46 Black and Blue was Rankin’s breakthrough novel: the one that made him an international bestseller, not just a recognised quality writer.
Shortly before the book was released, Rankin returned from his six years in France. He and his family were renting a house in Edinburgh but had to vacate it when the family who owned it wanted it back for Christmas. Initially this wasn’t a problem as the Rankins spent Christmas in Belfast with Rankin’s wife’s family. They then spent New Year with friends in Cambridge. They moved around to other family and friends for a while, and while in York visiting friends Rankin read a teaser in The Times. It announced that the best crime novel of 1997 had already been written and its identity would be released the following week. Rankin’s next novel was due for January release and he prayed that it was his book that the reviewer was raving about. It was, and by November, the eighth Rebus novel had picked up the Gold Dagger Award for the best crime novel published in 1997. The Times had got it right. Rankin had now truly made it.
But it was largely due to Rankin’s experiences with writing ‘scripts’ before writing Let It Bleed that made Black and Blue – and Rankin – famous. There had definitely been a step up in the substance of the novels since The Black Book, and it wasn’t just because of Rebus’s move to St Leonard’s and the introduction of ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty (although that didn’t hurt the series at all). It was to do with writing technique.
Rankin had learned the art of script-writing and the fact that tw
o or three sub-plots were important to a story. He had tried out the formula in Let It Bleed and refined it for Black and Blue, and this to me is the reason why the series then took off. Rankin doesn’t quite see it that way: ‘I think everything conspired to make Black and Blue a better book than my previous offerings. I got a strong central story and, thanks to James Ellroy’s object lesson, brought real-world47 crimes and stories into my fictional world.
In May 2005, Rankin admitted that Black and Blue had been ‘written in anger’. His son Kit had been born in July 1994, while he and Miranda were living in France. There had been no signs of problems with the baby either during pregnancy or the first couple of months of its life, but by nine months it became clear that there were serious problems with Kit. Frustrated by his lack of grasp of the French language and the punishment God had inflicted upon him, Rankin let fly his anger at Rebus and the new novel he was writing. Black and Blue became longer, more intricate and menacing as a consequence. ‘The anger and all of that helped,’ Rankin explained. ‘I really felt focused… and Rebus becomes more of a believable human character – we begin to care about him.48
So the introduction of a disabled child spawned the bestseller Rankin had been dreaming of? No. Black and Blue was pure evolution: a sudden set of leaps up the ladder that had started with The Black Book, then Mortal Cause and followed by Let It Bleed. Of course the series had been evolving since day one, but Rebus’s world had suddenly got bigger and more intricate, and characters were returning to the series, such as – with Black and Blue – Jim Stevens (the journalist) and Jack Morton (who had worked with him in Knots and Crosses).
We can also picture Rebus a little more clearly now. He is ‘a couple of inches’ taller than DS ‘Dod’ Bain, who is 5ft 11in, and he is also out of shape – if we believe Jack Morton, who has given up the bad things in life for a new fitness regime! So Rebus is clearer in his creator’s mind suddenly, and does not have anything more in common with Rankin. Does this tell us anything in itself? Yes, perhaps. It tells us that Rankin didn’t have to rely on his own personal background any more. The research he had done about the Police Force, Edinburgh and real life bad guys had made Black and Blue a real watershed novel for him. Rebus was suddenly the older man; Rankin had distanced himself somewhat and this distance had allowed the writer to bounce his character around a little more, take risks, become more creative.
Another very interesting and important part of Black and Blue is the character Rebus is tracking down, Johnny Bible. It appears that this serial killer is a copycat murderer based upon 1960s killer Bible John. The point here is that Bible John really existed and was never caught by the police. Rankin decided to work this urban-gothic story into Black and Blue (this is what Rankin was referring to with James Ellroy’s object lesson), thus adding a speculative but very thought-provoking sub-plot that would engage anyone remotely interested in the Bible John case.
Using Bible John was inspired but surely Rankin was concerned about using a real-life serial killer after the fictitious Wolfman had had his name painted on an underpass wall? I asked Rankin if copycat murders troubled him (i.e. people basing their crimes on incidents in his book)? ‘I’ve discussed this a bit with other crime writers,’ he said. ‘We feel that the people who read crime fiction tend to be very well-balanced – lovely people to meet! It’s because reading is cathartic. All your fears and frustrations and any innate aggression are “earthed” by placing yourself in the shoes of these characters.49
Black and Blue was more than a stream of consciousness emanating from urban folktales. It must be remembered that Rankin’s social conscience was working hard nowadays, and the plight of Scottish industry/enterprise was something that stuck in his throat and hardened his stories. For me, this is where the anger comes in. Maybe the anger is also detected in some of the supporting ‘bad boy’ cast, as they are all a little more vicious than usual. There’s Tony El, a man who likes to tie his victims up, put polythene bags over their heads and use power tools to torture them. Then there’s Malky – aka Mr Stanley Knife – who fills emergency rooms all over Glasgow with his ‘particular hobby’. Yes, Black and Blue is a more spiteful novel, and if we focus in on the statements about the decline of Scottish industry to the viciousness of certain characters and the cavalier things that happen to Rebus – including being beaten black and blue – we can see where Rankin threw his anger.
Sometimes it is only when a writer gets angry that he produces his best work. To adopt a cavalier approach to writing (or in the case of the great Goon Spike Milligan, a completely unorthodox/abstract approach) is occasionally the only way of breaking through the safety net. There are so many examples of this, from the ancient to the modern. It doesn’t have to be anger that provokes the best work: sentiment and tenderness work too. I’m thinking of a book like Campbell Armstrong’s All That Really Matters, where the author embarks upon a very personal story – not totally autobiographical – in order to touch his audience’s hearts. Digging into emotions are the key to good writing and sometimes that is a very difficult thing to do, especially in crime fiction. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle found it almost impossible to do in his Sherlock Holmes fiction, trying to add flowery prose through his narrator Dr Watson, only to realise that Sherlock Holmes dictated a sterile atmosphere of pure facts!
‘First there had been Bible John, terrorising Glasgow in the late 1960s… And now there was Johnny Bible. The media has been quick with the name.’
Black and Blue
On reading Black and Blue, one is pulled into Rebus’s life and interest in the Johnny Bible/Bible John cases, but that is almost the sub-plot to the book, as Rebus is forced into moments of happenstance50 that pull him towards solving the case. It is an interesting way of writing a novel and the fact that it takes a long time to sort the Johnny Bible murders against Rebus’ confusing life dictates and justifies the length of the novel. In fact, like Let It Bleed, things don’t end up that well for Rebus, and this makes the story so much more believable – because as Frank Sinatra observed, that’s life!
Rebus’s flaws/hang-ups are clearly showcased in the novel too. The way he needs to fight a friend to release tension, the way he talks back to authority when they need to cross-examine him. There is a depth and believability about Rebus, as Rankin enthuses: ‘Rebus is a man who has used his psychological problems to good advantage in his working life.’51 And he is right. Rebus is a survivor. The fact that he had survived a tour in the Army, a breakdown, and neither drank nor smoked himself to death, is highly commendable. Could we say a similar thing about Ian Rankin? No, not really. Perhaps his drinking habits have got the better of him in the past but he is no Rebus, that is for sure.
Has Rebus therefore been Rankin’s Dorian Gray? An interesting concept, but frankly one that doesn’t hold too much water. Perhaps if Rankin was a single man, his life would have had less meaning and his books more, but even then I can’t see where Rankin would have pressed self-destruct after the end of the Rebus novels.
‘“Thing is, I’ve tried to learn from you, but I’m not sure you were the right choice. A bit too intense maybe, eh? See, whatever it is you’ve got, John, I just don’t have it.” A longer pause. “And I’m not sure I even want it, to be honest.”’
Black and Blue .
CHAPTER TWELVE
EDINBURGH, BENEATH THE VENEER
‘But Edinburgh pays cruelly for her high seat in one of the vilest climates under heaven. She is liable to be beaten upon by all the winds that blow, to be drenched by rain, to be buried in cold sea fogs out of the east, and powdered with the snow as it comes flying southward from the Highland hills.’
Robert Louis Stevenson, Edinburgh – Picturesque Notes
Although the Rebus books sometimes take place outside Edinburgh, Rankin always brings the story back to the capital city for the more dark – macabre – moments of corruption and murder. A good example of this is the novella Death Is Not The End (Orion, 1998). Rebus travels to his hometown to hel
p an old friend, Brian ‘Barney’ Mee, find his missing son Damon. It looks like a straightforward missing person’s case (although Rebus is out of his jurisdiction) but suddenly a Hibernian football player is involved and the movers and shakers behind the disappearance are the money men back in Edinburgh. So Rebus is pulled back to his adopted city from his hometown and, as Rebus’s hometown is Rankin’s hometown, one cannot fail to draw the comparison that Rankin is constantly pulled back to Edinburgh by skeletal fingers.
Too strong an analogy? Possibly, but what one must take into consideration is the fact that the passage of time sometimes doesn’t heal wounds – it shrouds them. Death Is Not The End is a great little story for illustrating this point. Rankin asks the question right at the beginning of the story: ‘Is loss redeemed by memory? Or does memory merely swell the sense of loss, becoming the enemy?’ It’s a big question for such a little book, but he takes the idea deeper: ‘the language of loss is the language of memory… people leave our lives all the time: some we met briefly, others we’d known since birth.’
If we appreciate the title of the story in conjunction with the above quotes, we can see that death is not the end, because people have to live on after their loved ones have departed. Memory is both saint and sinner and keeps feelings fresh, for good and bad reasons. When Rebus accompanies DC Siobhan Clarke to a Hibernian game, his mind wanders back to his father taking him and his brother to local Cowdenbeath games to show that they could still carry on as a normal family despite the death of Rebus’s mother. The teardrop of autobiography again in the story: that path where Rankin’s and Rebus’s worlds definitely cross over.