The Complaints by Ian Rankin (Orion $37.99)
Inspector Rebus, the copper who made Rankin one of the best-known names in crime fiction,
has retired. In The Complaints, Malcolm Fox works the same Edinburgh beat, but fro
mthe Complaints and Conduct Department. He investigates dirty cops. He has to be squeaky clean, a job description which will be tested when his sister becomes a suspect in the murder of her abusive partner. Is he being set up to fall? Who can be trusted? This is one of the hardest tricks in the genre to pull off: a ripper story with a moralist's touch. Rankin does it with style and subtlety and, in Fox, has created a character with depths and fallibility to rival Rebus.
Fever of the Bone by Val McDermid (Little, Brown $37. 99)
McDermid's most famous character, psychologist and profiler Tony Hill, is more dysfunctional than the nutters he profiles. He has a strange will-they-won't-they relationship with copper Carol Jordan (a good old cliff-hanger device.) That relationship, and the politics of the cop
shop, drive the narrative alongside an expertly plotted investigation of a psycho contacting kids
through a social networking site.
The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell (Hutchinson $38.99)
Rendell's Chief Inspector Wexford gets crankier and ever more despairing about the modern world by the book. His nemesis, putting aside the crims, is the irritatingly PC, DS Hannah Goldsmith, who could find racism and sexism in a tube timetable. This gives Wexford the space to grump and harrumph, which is
good fun.Meanwhile, Wexford believes he's being stalked by a character from his past: the seedy,
menacing Targo, who may have got away with two murders early in Wexford's career. Not up
there with the very best of Rendell, or Wexford, but the writing, as always, is a delight.
Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly (Allen & Unwin $38.99)
Connelly excels at the fast-paced action-packed police procedural and here he does it again with
another Harry Bosch novel. Bosch battles the bottle and tries to keep the long distance relationship with his teenage daughter alive (she lives in Hong Kong; he lives in L.A) He
has a funny way of communicating with her: he emails her a photo of a cigarette smoker's
diseased lungs, taken from an autopsy session. Then the triads appear to have taken his daugher so he rushes off to Hong Kong to save her, advising his ex-wife against calling
the police. If that seems peculiar advice, we have to remember that Bosch does things his way. Or Connelly's way. Which is kick-ass, fast-paced, etc action which can leave you longing for a bit more finesse.
The Surrogate by Tania Carver (Sphere $38.99)
If you like your murder mysteries gruesome, this one should do it for you very nicely.
Or, rather, very nastily. Some crazy is cutting babies from wombs, a plot device which allows for as much gory detail as possible. DI Phillip Brennan brings in his former girlfriend, a psychologist who was nearly killed when they last worked together. Now she is in a relationship and, surprise, is pregnant. Will DI Phil let her down again? Can the baby be saved? How nuts is the
nutter? Nutty enough to be a split personality, or will the truth be even crazier, and more
ludicrous than that?
These mini-reviews first appeared in The Weekend Herald on Saturday 31 October and are reproduced here by kind permission of Herald Books Editor Linda Herrick.
For a fuller review of The Complaints by Ian Rankin check The Bookman's review here.
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