A review by crufts
Even Dogs in the Wild by Ian Rankin

dark slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.25

Dull. After enjoying Ian Rankin's other books (e.g. The Falls), I was disappointed.

THE GOOD:
  • Even Dogs... did okay with realism and plausibility. It was easy enough to maintain suspension of disbelief in this world, where the laws of the universe felt consistent and made sense.

THE BAD:
  • Unnecessary proliferation of characters. Good lord, so many names! Who the hell is "Emerson"? Or "Laura Smith"? Or "Grieve"? Or "Albert Stout"? Or any one of the two dozen other people who appear for just a few pages?
    By trying to cover so many people, the novel is unable to spend enough time on any one of them, and we're left with a faceless crowd of non-personalities.
    A number of character roles could have been combined and reduced. There didn't need to be four or five named yet indistinguishable Detective Inspectors in the department; two would have been plenty. There didn't need to be three similarly-acting crime bosses acting as rivals to eachother; it only takes two to feud. And so on.
  • Unnecessary proliferation of minor details. Stop telling us the fine points of every minor character's life, it's dragging the pace of the narrative!
    This 3rd-person-impersonal perspective that treats every character as equally relevant and deserving of screentime is boring and pulls attention away from more interesting information. The book's blurb only mentions the two main characters of DI Siobhan Clarke and John Rebus; it would be better to focus on their arcs and only detail the other characters when relevant.
  • Rather than having a clear narrative flow, the detective chain of inquiry spidered out wildly. Long periods pass where no significant findings or conclusions were made. Many findings were left cold for ages, so that when they were finally resolved they seemed to come out of the blue. (Example: The opening scene is a flashback, the relevance of which is not revealed until page 399.)
  • Too many irrelevant subplot threads. Why did Prof. Deborah Quant suddenly proposition Rebus for a romantic evening? What was the point of the dog? How was Malcolm Fox's relationship with his father supposed to illuminate the main themes?

Ultimately, if you asked me to summarize the plot of Even Dogs in the Wild, I would have to shrug in resignation. So much happens, yet so little of it makes meaningful, significant changes to the world of the protagonists (who barely qualify as protagonists considering how little screentime they get compared to minor characters). It's not even actively bad, it's just boring.
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