This could have been so much more. The concept or story is fantastic. I wanted to like it. I started out liking it. Unfortunately, as the story went on I noticed where it should have been amazing and wasn’t. ‘Knots and Crosses’ wasn’t bad, but it fell far short of its potential. This means it will probably be made into a much better movie. There is a solid mystery set in Edinburgh here. It has some true twists and interesting characters. Who doesn’t like a main character whose father and brother are legitimate magicians while he’s a hardened cop with the dysfunctional family and divorce to prove it.Inspector Rebus became a cop after a disgraceful exit from the SIS. Cue the intrigue. His past only gets released in small pieces until close to the end. It ties to a truly disturbed serial killer taking young girls. No one can determine how the murders are connected. Rebus’s boss is an irritant, there are real family issues, and there is a work related love interest. None of which gets explored well enough. Everything is connected but the real question is how the killer is connected to Rebus, and why he keeps getting notes delivered by hand to his house taunting him. They all include either knots or crosses. That should mean something to him…This was not executed well. The writing isn’t poor but characters are stereotypes. You could place them in any police mystery. Nothing makes them distinctive. They fall for the same traps every stereotypical character falls for. It made me angry because the bones of the story are good. Not everyone can come up with a story worth reading and when cardboard characters clutter it … well, it’s a shame. The other issue is lack of details. It felt like Rankin was going from plot point to plot point rather than reveling in the content or paying attention to what he was writing in the moment. No scene felt like something you could immerse yourself in.I haven’t decided to read or not read the next book. I know a first book can be difficult. Maybe Rankin hits his stride as the series continues. I have no issue with pulp. In fact I enjoy it a lot, but this was hard for me. Michael Page narrated the audiobook I listened to. Parts worked but it baffled me why a mystery set in Scotland was read by an Englishman. Michael Page is good. He differentiates his characters well but his voice is distinctive. You either like him or you don’t but I don’t think he was a good match for Rankin’s work. I will probably give the second book a chance based on Rankin’s core story but if I do I will read it rather than listen to it.
I've been wanting to get round to Rebus for more than a decade. All the more disappointing then that this opening entry in the series is so pedestrian. For a start, Rebus himself is a stock collage of character defects that have been better used in better books. Choice of music, reliance on booze, dogged persistence... the redeeming feature, of the character rather than the man, is how uninspired a police officer he is at this stage. It was refreshing, to me at least, to encounter so unimpressive a detective. There's nothing remarkable about John Rebus, save for his past. The SAS training he has undertaken is shrouded in mystery, which of course means it's central to a plot that fails to unravel and just sort of presents itself at the end. Obvious clues are ignored for the sake of stringing things out to book length, and when a stage hypnotist is brought in to uncover certain suppressed memories, I almost threw the book at the wall. For the most part, the book is clumsy, and a struggle to wade through. I'm glad I tried the next in the series, which is considerably better, but I almost stopped here.
What do You think about Knots And Crosses (1995)?
It was oddly appropriate that I read Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses at this time because, like its hero Inspector Rebus, I have been contending in my mind about the meaning of the Old Testament Book of Job. At one point, he reads from a Bible while in the hospital after having blacked out:When an innocent man suddenly dies, God laughs.God gave the world to the wicked.He made all the judges blind.And if God didn't do it, who did?Knots and Crosses is about a serial killer who kills 12-year-old girls by strangling without having sexually abused them. It's all because he knows Detective Sergeant John Rebus, while Rebus himself is blocked from remembering him by a cruel amnesia that blocks out his experiences in the Special Air Service (SAS), an elite and secretive wing of the British military. That amnesia is the only reason I have given the book four stars rather than five, because I have always thought of amnesia as a literary gimmick. There are a few other gimmicks, such as the taunting notes that the murderer keeps sending Rebus. But then, this is the first of the Rebus novels, and I suspect that Rankin has the talent to improve.
—Jim
I have very little to say about this book. The major aspect that stuck to me was how, early in the book, the writer made us care and take sides via the sexual shenanigans of the few main characters. Rebus, Stevens, and Gill. I'm grateful that the faithfully present mob boss of future books isn't here. The book almost played to my disapproval...of flashbacks and endings in thrillers. Both necessary evils were not too long. To conclude I must say that the suffering and violence in this book is very mild, if not clinical. From the few Ian Ranking books I've read before this one, it seems that empathy is not gained from the victims. The victims rarely make us side with the hero. They exist independently of Rebus. The author makes us feel for Rebus because he's human and believable. I don't like men like Rebus, but within the confines of the book, he's a very decent guy. That's all I feel entitled to demand.
—Luffy Monkey D.
I was very excited to read this. I'd been meaning to read Ian Rankin and finding myself in a used bookshop in Inverness finally bought the first two books of the series [I think the shopkeeper was very excited that I wanted to read their own Scottish wonder - he won a main prize last year at the Edinburgh book festival.:]However found it a little disappointing - straightforward plot [that sounds ridiculous perhaps - because it is requisitely twisty - but in a way that if you've read more than one detective novel in your life, you will know which way it's going to turn.:] The ending was too abrupt.Sloppy characterization, etc etc.Now, Rankin has written DOZENS of books and is quite well regarded - so maybe this is just a first book sort of thing, maybe he gets better - am going to read the second one and see how I feel about him then....
—Dasha
