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A review by boyblue
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
3.0
Good old Rebus. Here we are again. This time the High Hiedyins decide they can put Rebus's known antagonism and lone wolf attitude to use. So they send him to do some remedial policing course for naughty cops. I'll admit Rankin got me with the tea throwing incident. I was annoyed because it didn't make sense that Rebus would be throwing tea at Gill Templer his ex-flame and now boss. Rebus is on the course with 3 suspected bad cops who have stolen some money and he's tasked with trying to get some evidence. Well we know he's going to do it, we just don't know how he's going to get it done, of course we have a suspicion that it's going to involve a pound of flesh (Rebus' flesh) because Rebus loves to pay for insights with his own body.
Meanwhile rising star Siobhan Clarke is left without her mentor to solve a murder case and finds herself becoming more and more like him as the Rebus methods bring her closer to the truth. Frankly with the sort of colleagues she has it's not hard to see why you would want to do everything yourself. For some reason that creep and colleague Derek Linford, who was legitimately caught perving on Siobhan, is back, and in some stupid way he believes everything is going to be ok and he can start asking her out again. The sad thing is I can definitely see that happening in real life. As one of the characters says to Siobhan late in the piece "I wouldn't be a female cop for all the tea in china".
Siobhan basically gets half the airtime in this book which I think is a first. It's clear that Rankin is getting closer to putting Rebus out to pasture. Again Rebus' refusal to trust anyone, even Siobhan, makes his job so much harder. He doesn't even tell the Chief Constable who has put him on these naughty cops what he's planning to do. I mean why. Once again he cracks the case and he should get serious recognition for doing what no one else could have done, not to mention the fact that he almost dies doing it. But he doesn't even get a pat on the back. He gets nothing, not a sausage. Is this supposed to help us understand his antagonism? I think it would be nice for him to be rewarded just once for doing the impossible. I also grew immensely frustrated that he somehow was dumb enough to end up cornered and kidnapped, after all the care Rankin forces him to let his guard down so we can have the classic Rebus face off.
As for Siobhan, I'm worried that the mask is eating the face. By this I mean Rankin's decision to make her like Rebus is eating away at any of her own personality traits. She is basically Rebus Lite. And without Rebus' history and track record it seems a bit petulant. Do I like her, of course. But I just wish she would be allowed to develop in a way that wasn't constantly compared to Rebus.
Still a good read and it will be interesting to see now Rankin has given Siobhan that much airtime whether he'll keep it like that or dial it back.
Meanwhile rising star Siobhan Clarke is left without her mentor to solve a murder case and finds herself becoming more and more like him as the Rebus methods bring her closer to the truth. Frankly with the sort of colleagues she has it's not hard to see why you would want to do everything yourself. For some reason that creep and colleague Derek Linford, who was legitimately caught perving on Siobhan, is back, and in some stupid way he believes everything is going to be ok and he can start asking her out again. The sad thing is I can definitely see that happening in real life. As one of the characters says to Siobhan late in the piece "I wouldn't be a female cop for all the tea in china".
Siobhan basically gets half the airtime in this book which I think is a first. It's clear that Rankin is getting closer to putting Rebus out to pasture. Again Rebus' refusal to trust anyone, even Siobhan, makes his job so much harder. He doesn't even tell the Chief Constable who has put him on these naughty cops what he's planning to do. I mean why. Once again he cracks the case and he should get serious recognition for doing what no one else could have done, not to mention the fact that he almost dies doing it. But he doesn't even get a pat on the back. He gets nothing, not a sausage. Is this supposed to help us understand his antagonism? I think it would be nice for him to be rewarded just once for doing the impossible. I also grew immensely frustrated that he somehow was dumb enough to end up cornered and kidnapped, after all the care Rankin forces him to let his guard down so we can have the classic Rebus face off.
As for Siobhan, I'm worried that the mask is eating the face. By this I mean Rankin's decision to make her like Rebus is eating away at any of her own personality traits. She is basically Rebus Lite. And without Rebus' history and track record it seems a bit petulant. Do I like her, of course. But I just wish she would be allowed to develop in a way that wasn't constantly compared to Rebus.
Still a good read and it will be interesting to see now Rankin has given Siobhan that much airtime whether he'll keep it like that or dial it back.