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No Complaints

20/1/2011

3 Comments

 
You'll be aware that this is my first blog for a while. I apologise to regulars. What with the aftermath of shingles and one or two other issues I have not approached the laptop with my usual relish.

In fact, I've been reading a great deal more than writing. Partly for pleasure, but also - in the early hours - as a means of driving out of my head a series of hypothetical conversations with my current nemesis.

One of the books I have read during this period is The Complaints by Ian Rankin. It's the first I have read by him which does not feature John Rebus.

It's a truism that the real protagonist of the Rebus novels, especially the later ones, is not actually Rebus but the city of Edinburgh. I love a sense of place in my detective fiction and feel that I know Edinburgh like the proverbial back of my hand simply through the novels. In the same way, I have navigated around Venice with Donna Leon's Brunelli, Paris with Cara Black's Aimee Leduc and Leo Malet's Nestor Burma, and Boston with Robert B Parker's Spenser. One day, I will probably do New York with Bloch's Scudder, LA with Connelly's Harry Bosch and Ystad with Mankell's Wallender.

The thing about The Complaints, however, is that there is very little about Edinburgh. The protagonist, Malcolm Fox, operates out of the same office building as did Rebus but, apart from the odd, spiteful reference to roadworks, the story could really be transplanted to almost anywhere. And Fox himself is not a product of Edinburgh in the way that Rebus so clearly is.

These are not criticisms; merely observations. In fact, I enjoyed Fox and the 'quis custodiet ipsos custodes' plot more than any of the last dozen or so Rebus novels. And maybe it is because, without the Rough Guide to Edinburgh element, the emphasis is more precisely focused on character and plot.

I commend it to you.

Today's listening: Glenn Gould, Bach's Goldberg Variations. The 1981 recording. Simultaneously calming and energising.
3 Comments
Will link
20/1/2011 04:29:16

Max,

Actually it could be better that the font is hard to read.

Will



http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/14/reading_fonts/

Reply
Leon
20/1/2011 08:55:14

'A sense of place in detective fiction'? Few better examples, I'd have thought, than the Venice, California of Ray Bradbury's "Death is a Lonely Business". (*your recommendation, many years ago!)

Reply
Max
21/1/2011 02:24:26

Thanks guys.

Will, heard a piece on the radio about ugly fonts - apparently they stimulate the cerebral cortex and thus the information is more memorable. Thanks for the link. (But blog is optimised for reading on mobiles - you may prefer the font on your iPhone.)

Leon, different Venice of course but thanks for the reminder. May be time to re-read DIALB ...

Reply



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    Max Smith

    European writer, radical, restaurateur and Red Sox fan. 70-something husband, father, step-father, grandfather and son. Resident in Warwick, England.

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