I few years ago I visited New Zealand. Took with me a stack of books, but it wasn’t quite enough. So I stopped at a New Zealand bookstore chain called Paper Plus and grabbed a couple of titles. I tried to get something I wouldn’t find here. Well, you can get Ian Rankin books here, but they aren’t quite as popular as they are in the Commonwealth. It was pretty close to the end of the trip, and I never did get around to reading this particular book. Well, not on the trip anyway. I have now.
Ian Rankin is a mystery author. He’s best known for his Inspector Rebus character, a detective in Edinburgh, Scotland. Beggars Banquet is a collection of short stories, all mysteries. Quite a few are Inspector Rebus stories, and the rest are non-recurring characters. Or at least they don’t show up in other stories in this collection. They may appear in other works by Rankin.
One of the things I liked about Inspector Rebus in these stories is that he doesn’t have a lot of demons. He has regrets. He has a history. But it’s a fairly normal one of growing up and moving away from home. He also doesn’t behave like the typical mystery police officer. There’s no running off ignoring orders from higher-ups. He’s not a cowboy. In fact, he sometimes drags along some of his fellow inspectors who don’t want to get involved but are intrigued anyway. And he does bend the rules, but in a way that seems to me to be more realistic that the normal hard-boiled mystery detective. Which Rebus also is not. In none of his stories did he pull a gun. He doesn’t live the mean streets of Edinburgh, despite the blurb on the back cover of the book. He’s a worldly detective. So I rather liked those stories.
The non-Rebus stories were a bit more of a mixed bag though. There were a few hard-boiled characters there. One is a story of a hit-man who methodically handles a scene, only to be revealed later as the detective who will investigate the crime. Another is a tale of a comedian who owes money to the mob. But since he’s not very funny he can’t repay them and goes on the run. One day the mob shows up at a club he’s working, and he becomes the funniest he’s ever been, under pressure. Another tells the story of a man who murders his wife and frames a womanizing friend who might have been involved with his wife, only to find out he’s secretly gay. Which puts a crimp on his frame job. One is set in the world of caddies in Edinburgh in the 1700s. Caddies being helpers I guess. He’s asked to find a book, but subcontracts out to another caddie because the money is so good. Only his fellow caddie soon ends up dead, and he may be next on the list. I loved this story because it used coincidence in a coincidental way, not as a way to conveniently tie all the plots together. In this case, what looks to be purposeful turns out to be mere coincidence.
Still, my main thought while reading the stories was not of brilliance but of workmanship. Most of the stories were pretty good, but none struck me with the wow
factor. They didn’t have the grab-hold-of-me quality that a Crumley or a Xiaolong story does. But every single story was well-crafted and interesting. There wasn’t anything in any of the stories that made me cringe like I get from many mysteries. All in all, a good read. And nice that they are short stories so you can fit one in on a lunch break or in other narrowly confined schedules.
Title: Beggars banquet
Author: Ian Rankin
Series: Inspector Rebus
Imprint / publisher: Orion
Format: Paperback
Length: 376 p.
Publication date: March 2003
ISBN-10: 0-75284-959-X
Subject: Detective and mystery stories, English
Subject: Rebus, Inspector (Fictitious character) — Fiction
Subject: Police — Scotland — Edinburgh — Fiction
Subject: Edinburgh (Scotland) — Fiction
LC classification: PR6068.A57 B44 2002
