Exit Music
by Ian Rankin
‘You … are … history.’ Approx- imately halfway through Ian Rankin’s latest and surely most brilliant thriller Exit Music, these appalling words are spoken to D. I. John Rebus by his superior. What is worse, Chief Constable James Corbyn means it. He’s not simply referring to the fact that Rebus is within an ace of his 60th birthday (bad enough) but also going much, much further: ‘I know you’ve got three days left until retirement but you’re going to spend them on suspension.’ When Rebus counters, ‘Isn’t that just a tiny bit petty and pathetic, sir?’ Corbyn proceeds to forbid him any kind of police access: ‘What I want you to do, Rebus, is crawl away from here and tick off the days on the calendar.’
It’s a brilliant coup de théâtre and left me gasping, wondering how the rest of this satisfyingly long book was going to be filled.
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