The Hanging Garden is the ninth Ian Rankin book starring Inspector Rebus. Nine books in a series, back to back to back, is a lot I have found. They are great novels, but maybe time for a break.
This begins with an intriguing bit of history I had not known about. It involves the so-called 'Rat Line' which helped high ranking Nazi officials move out of Germany at the end of the war into the UK and US where they were set up with new comfortable new lives, in exchange for Nazi secrets, instead of being held accountable and tried for war crimes. Looked upon as a win at the time for the Secret Service, many of their children grew up to fill important posts making the current Secret Service reluctant to help anyone reveal the now aged officials as criminals.
The majority of the book however, involves local crime boss Tommy Telford and his gang's battle with the opposition run by Big Ger Cafferty, now running things from prison. Caught between them is Rebus' daughter Sammy, victim of a hit and run driver. Rebus and Sammy had been helping a Chechen woman who had been shipped over and forced into Telford's prostitution ring. Addicted to drugs and self-harming, she has only Rebus to help her escape.
This escalates into local war when Telford gets involved with a Chechen crime boss and even invites in the Yakuza, as he attempts to encompass control of the drug flow, prostitutes and finally, attempts an attack on a local drug company that manufactures the only legal supply of heroin. What Telford doesn't know is who is really pulling the strings, who is setting him up - and who will walk away unharmed for the mess. That's up to Rebus.
The Hanging Garden is also the name of an album by The Cure, and names like Fascination Street and Mr. Pink Eyes are thrown in with a wink and a nod. While not as long as Black and Blue, this one took me over a week which is long for me. I read three other books in between the start and finish of this. I found it a little tiring. The word I would use is choppy. I guess it was all that waiting around for Sammy in the hospital, and Rebus is trying to stay on the wagon. Not so pleasant to be around.
A solid novel. Not my favourite.
1998 / Tradeback / 411 pages
Comments