Mystery Man

Knots & Crosses
Ian Rankin
Orion Books

When I started this blog, one of my primary objectives was to read outside of my comfort zone. Up until a couple of years ago, I wasn't an adventurous reader. Sure -- I owned all sorts of works that you'd find on a grad school syllabus, but aside from the occasional romance, there was nothing on my shelves that remotely resembled "popular" fiction. In fact, you could say that I was a classic EMBS -- English Major Book Snob. Happily, I'm recovering now, but only because you guys (my friends and some loyal blog readers) have taken me beyond the "fiction" section of the bookstore and encouraged me to read other things.

Knots & Crosses, for example, was recommended to me by my BFF Pete. He's been reading Rankin for quite some time and noted two things that have struck him in particular about the series. The first is that the main character, Detective Sergeant John Rebus is a rumpled, imperfect, complicated, yet wholly likeable guy. Peter actually described him as a "good" man and that's not a term that he uses lightly -- even when talking about a fictional character. The other point of interest is that when you start reading the series from the beginning (Knots & Crosses is set in 1985), Rebus exists in a policing world that is essentially still pre-technology. Curiously, the lack of "modernity" didn't seem to date the story in any way and it was that, more than anything else, that sucked me in. So much so, that I was off to the bookstore this afternoon to buy book number two.

I think Rebus and I are going to become friends before all of this is over. I certainly need someone that I can count on in times of trouble and he seems like just the man to fit the bill. Three point five good guys out of five.