See the full list of books in Ian Rankin's
Inspector Rebus
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Knots And Crosses
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Someone is strangling children in Edinburgh. Inspector John Rebus starts receiving what he thinks are crank letters, each enclosing a small neatly tied knot. While investigating the serial strangler, Rebus takes the reader with him on a tour of the seedy side of Scotland's second city. Along the way we learn that Rebus has lost his marriage, has forgotten how to communicate with his young daughter, drinks too much and feels and acts the loner. We meet the other detectives and minor characters that flesh out the story so well. While Rebus starts to see where all the clues are pointing, the reader is completely drawn into the story. Rankin set out to write a modern day parallel to Jekyll and Hyde, not a crime fiction book at all. But the result is the beginning of the best mystery series I've yet to read. Inspector Rebus is fascinating enough to carry a book by himself, but the mystery is absorbing, thought-provoking and makes this book a fast paced page turner. I can't recommend this book highly enough. Ian Rankin has penned a masterpiece with this series. I hope you will read them all.
Format:Paperback
The first book by Ian Rankin and the first to feature Inspector John Rebus. I must admit to being more interested in good characters than clever story lines but this has both. Rebus is a fascinatingly human protaganist who you just want to find out more about. Fortunatley there are a dozen Rebus novels in which to get to know him better.
Well worth the read.
Well worth the read.
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I hated this book. At least fifteen people must have recommended Rankin to me, but I found the prose sludgy and the plot generally uninteresting, and, as in other of his books, hard to keep track of. He has a formula he doesn't seem to deviate from: an interesting murder (usually) is described and after that, the characters, who are really stock figures, set about figuring out what happened while doom and gloom swirls about Edinburgh. He uses the trick of trying to make the main character sympathetic by making him a maverick while the other benighted police personnel fail to understand his superior ability. So do I. He seems barely human.
His books tend to be quite long. After reading two of them, and realizing I could have reread Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, or Alice in Wonderland, or just about anything, I was completely fed up with myself for having wasted the time. I lent the book to someone else who said it wasn't as terrible as I thought it was but he wouldn't read another book of his. Why all the fuss?
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not his best, but still intriguing
What can one write about Rankin? The creator of Inspector Rebus? This is one in his long series of Rebus novels and of course it is intriguing and great. Read more
Published on May 21 2002 by Isabella K. Badenoch
4.0 out of 5 stars
Maybe not your run-of-the-mill procedural
Interesting. I had heard of Rankin in passing but I watched an interview with him in July. I had to give him a try. Knots and Crosses shows that it is his first major work. Read more
Published on Dec 24 2001 by Michael Allison
3.0 out of 5 stars
Dry, dark, humorless police procedural
Recent installments of the Rebus series (Black & Blue, Dead Souls and Set in Darkness) have garnished a fair amount of critical acclaim and awards. Read more
Published on July 26 2001 by Carol Peterson Hennekens
3.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting introduction to the series.
Lacks the complex, inter-twining plot and characters of his excellent later novels. The plot is a little run of the mill and the resolution predictable. Read more
Published on Dec 29 2000
3.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Mystery set in Edinburgh
I discovered Ian Rankin while on vacation in Edinburgh. Enjoying reading books set in places I'm visiting, I went into a book store and asked for a good mystery by a Scottish... Read more
Published on Nov 3 2000
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cross my heart, you'll knot be disappointed
I have been looking for a good mystery series for months. After reading all of Anne Perry, P. D. James, Elizabeth George, and Martha Grimes, I have been disappointed time after... Read more
Published on Jun 13 2000
2.0 out of 5 stars
Weak Series Debut
Ian Rankin's debut John Rebus procedural has several similarities to John Harvey's Charlie Resnick series, weary, flawed, divorced, mid-level policeman hero, nasty plot (serial... Read more
Published on May 11 2000 by A. Ross
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mesmerizing
The series featuring DS John Rebus has been around for a while and is very popular in the UK.
Therefore I decided to pick up the first novel. I was very surprised indeed. Read more
Published on May 6 2000 by Gerrit Ruitinga
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't bother
This book contains the two things that I hate to find in a mystery book -- a contrived plot which depends on unbelievable coincidences, and a main character with hang-ups coming... Read more
Published on Jan 31 2000 by L. Owen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Knotty problems from Ian Rankin
What a pleasure it is to discover an untapped mystery series. It was almost purely by chance that I picked up Ian Rankin's Knots and Crosses, but it will be with eagerness that I... Read more
Published on Mar 30 1998 by Abigail Weed Howard (aabigail@aol.com)
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