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  1. That is something to look forward to!

    “A Heart Full of Headstones” ? It sounds like the name of an album by the Smiths or some gloomy, Glaswegian Gothmeisters. Not that that will put me off. Rankin has never disappointed me.

  3. Like other recent Rebus books, HFoH takes its name from a quote from a Jackie Leven song (“Single Father”)

    Having devoured HfoH when it came out last year, dying to read the one that takes up where that book leaves off (if he ever writes it – the next IR book will be a standalone thriller)

    This month’s real news on the UK crime fiction front is the sixth in Alan Parks
    splendid Harry McCoy “calendar” series, “To Die in June” is out in a couple of weeks. If you’ve
    not read any, start off with “Bloody January”. Bloody good it is, too

  6. If only Rankine could write as well as Leven. Sure, he doesn’t “need” to, selling as he does. I get it, they are good yarns, but so poorly written. They make Sven Hassell or the bloke who wrote “Skinhead” seem like Dickens and Dostoievsky respectively.

    • Something which surprised me in the recent Rankin exhibition in Edinburgh was how often his notes and so on referred to rigour and literary discipline, something which I had never associated with Ian and his work. The following quotation was written on the wall:

      I would put for critical appreciation, literary appreciation, over financial success. When I’m dead, I want my works to be studied in Scottish institutions. I don’t want £1 million now, and oblivion later

      Ian Rankin c.1995

  10. Rankin must have a very special status in Scotland. He is one of those modern crime writers who has really put his hometown or local area on the map. Interesting that the comment here on his deficiencies as a stylist came from a Scot!

    A few other examples.

    Sjöwahl and Wahlöö’s Martin Beck in Stockholm.

    Swedish TV are still running a very successful series featuring Beck with new storieswhich is very popular in Germany.

    Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander in Ystad and Skåne. Hiarious! Now you can visit Ystad and “fika the Kurt Wallander way”!

    https://visitskane.com/classic-attractions/footsteps-kurt-wallander

    American novelist Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti in Venice. She may not be Italian but she has a wonderful eye for detail and an ability to describe the city.

    https://www.dw.com/en/a-deadly-fascination-with-venice-crime-author-donna-leon-turns-75/a-40720559

    And then of course there is Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano.

    https://www.theoldie.co.uk/blog/montalbano-the-inspector-who-put-sicily-on-the-map

    I’ve seen several episodes of the TV show, which is very enjoyable.

    Recently I read one of the novels and that was even better. The translator, Stephen Sartarelli, who has worked on all the book is very diligent and provides some notes on some of the untranslatable cultural phenomena in the novel.

    https://www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com/index.php/features/an-interview-with-stephen-sartarelli

    • I wouldn’t want anyone to think I don’t admire and enjoy Ian’s books, but I don’t think of them as literature that will be studied for generations. I could be wrong about that, and Ian’s work is much closer to the sort of books I read anyway.

      • I completely agree with you @Gatz.

        Are there any crime writers who are regarded as literature?

        Maybe a few.

        But that their works are not considered as “literature” doesn’t diminish my admiration and enjoyment of Rankin, Chandler, Brookmyre, Camilleri, Mankell, Leon etc.

        • The “hard-boiled” school of which Chandler and Hammet are generally held as the giants often appears on the Literature modules in American Studies degrees.

          Edgar Allan Poe also dabbled in detective fiction (which he called “tales of ratiocination”, IIRC)

          Later writers like Jim Thompson and James Ellroy would probably qualify.

          Regardless or not of whether he has academic approval, Ellmore Leonard is definitely literature – for his deceptively simple prose style if nothing else

          • Poe is often regarded as one of the inventors of the detective story, and also a pioneer of science fiction and one of the greatest exponents of gothic horror.

            One of the most significant writers in American literature – unfortunately, also one of the worst writers in American literature.

          • Both Chandler and Hammett have all their work in the prestigious Library of American series, as have David Goodis, Patricia Highsmith, Chester Himes and Elmore Leonard, so obviously LoA think they’re ‘literature’. Alternatively, it might just be a debate they aren’t interested in having. They’re good enough for inclusion and that’s that.

            It seems that the US values crime writers much more highly than we do, and so does France for that matter. In my experience of crime writers (I ran the Gollancz crime list for 6/7 years) they are infuriated by the feeling that they aren’t taken seriously as literature – they long for solus reviews in the posh papers rather than a paragraph in the crime roundup. Call them genre writers and they’ll probably send the boys round. But outside the crime writing world – which is full of backbiters and whingers anyway – nobody cares, the public just buy their books in huge quantities and enjoy them. Crime writing is the best selling genre (oops) these days.

            • @mikethep

              Interestingly, Chandler, while US born, spent much of his childhood ib England and Ireland

              True re the way the UK ghettoizes its best crime writers.

              Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine would have been a magnificent writer whatever genre she decided to write in.

              The 13- word opening sentence of A Judgement in Stone

              “Eunice Parchman killed the Coverdale family because she could not read or write”

              is up there with “Call me Ishmael” and “It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen” as one of the greatest openings to a novel ever written

              • Nicely argued! No denying RRs’ extraordinary gifts as a writer.

                Is it accurate to say that, having established the Inspector Wexford novels as her day job, the Barbara Vine novels then gave her the chance to dig deeper and tackle darker subject matter?

                When P.D. James left Inspector Dalgleish at home and wrote, or example, Children of Men, she was certainly tackling much more demanding, bleaker subject matter. I’ve not read the book but Alfonso Cuarón’s film is a masterpiece.

                • Hi, K

                  Re RR’s evolution into BV

                  Not sure really as she always wrote standalone psychological novels as RR. IIRC when early BV’s like Dark Adapted Eye came out, it was clear that RR was doing the books as a side project.

                  As the years went by, she still did the odd standalone psych thriller as RR but they became – im(ns)ho – harder and harder to tell apart from the – for want of a better word – “edgier” stuff she produced as BV.

                  Re PDJ

                  Never really warned to Inspector Dalglieish as the idea of a poet policemen was just too reminiscent of the gentleman detective series of the 1930s

                  Agree with you re her off-piste novels such as CoM. Despite not caring for Dalglleish, I also loved Devices and Desires

  11. I’m just finishing this and I’ve been away from him for a while, having read all the others. It really strikes me how often they go on about tea, kettles, coffee etc. Every other page. Odd.

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