Crime fiction has been invaded by a veritable army of silver sleuths in recent years, from Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series to books by Elly Griffiths and Steph Broadribb. But leading the charge is Ian Rankin and his creation John Rebus.
However, like Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Rebus hasn’t just arrived as a retiree. He has grown old as the series has progressed, and as Midnight and Blue opens he is in prison and feeling his age. He’s in his 70s now, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and has been moved out of solitary and into a cell on his own in the main body of HMP Edinburgh. He longs to see the sky and breathe in fresh, clean air, but the appeal against his conviction for the attempted murder of old adversary Morris Gerald ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty seems to have stalled.
It’s a storyline that follows on from events in A Heart Full of Headstones in 2022, and the Rebus TV series that aired earlier in 2024 began with Rebus’s assault on Cafferty, but led into another storyline.
With time on his hands, enemies around every corner and little to look forward to, Rebus takes little persuading when the governor asks him to keep his ears and eyes open following a death on Trinity block, just doors down from Rebus’s cell. In what Ian Rankin has described as “the first locked-cell mystery”, Jackie Simpson was murdered while his drugged-addled cellmate slept, and was hit over the head to ensure he stayed that way. No one could have got in or out and there’s no sign of the weapon. Hmmmm.
Meanwhile, on the outside, Rebus’s former protégé DI Siobhan Clarke has seen the error of her ways and has left Professional Standards to return to CID. Which is where she lands the case of a missing teenager. Siobhan is on new territory at St Leonard’s nick, but her spidey senses are on overdrive as she learns more about 14-year-old Jasmine Andrews. Jas’s pals are keeping their own counsel but it soon becomes clear that there was more to the missing teenager than originally thought. Before long, there’s a murder case for Siobhan to get her teeth into, too.
Oh, and mentioning Professional Standards brings to mind the odious Malcolm Fox, sly by both name and by nature. He’s sticking his nose in as usual and taking far too much interest in the prison murder for DS Christine Essen’s liking. When former colleagues Siobhan and Christine meet for a drink after work, they have plenty to talk about, but Fox is top of the agenda. Soon his actions will have a bearing on both cases.
Midnight and Blue is a sinuously plotted book, with twin storylines meeting, intersecting and suddenly detouring to keep the reader engaged and off guard. It’s a talent that Scottish author Ian Rankin has honed over the 24 novels in this series – the first, Knots and Crosses, came out in 1987 – and there’s plenty of wrong-footing at play here. With Rebus himself out on a limb, it’s a genius move to split up Essen and Clarke too. As for Fox, well he’s always been a lone wolf and isn’t about to change his ways now.
Many of Rankin’s previous Rebus books have been named after a song title or lyric. That doesn’t apply here, but music does have a part to play and I’ll say no more. The author has said that he was planning to end the series at A Heart Full of Headstones but let’s be grateful that he changed his mind. Midnight and Blue is a cracking read, with the claustrophobia and tension of the prison setting adding a frisson of the unknown to a series that has always been able to surprise. I’m hoping that ending means we might get book 25. Pretty please, Sir Ian?
For more Scottish crime fiction, see our Classics of Tartan noir.
Orion
Print/Kindle/iBook
£11.99
CFL Rating: 5 Stars
