LET IT BLEED by Ian Rankin

Finished Fr 11/30/18

This is one of my paperbacks that I had read before. The reason I came back to this novel was that I was looking for some 'better' material to loan to Janny. When I read the recent John Grisham novel that she lent me I felt that, although I liked the book, Grisham is more of a 'story teller', not a 'writer'. You can have both, a rich story-line and a higher level of writing, and I think Ian Rankin more than fills the bill.

The novel's title refers to the Stones album, 'Let It Bleed'.

The novel begins with a wild car chase on the Forth Road Bridge.  This is located a little north and west of the city of Edinburgh. John Rebus is a passenger in the car and his boss is driving. Rebus's boss goes through the windshield and Rebus is injured. The two teenagers driving the car that they were chasing get out of their vehicle, hug, and then fall of the side of the bridge.

The two teens were part of a kidnapping hoax. A Scottish politician's daughter claimed to be kidnapped. She wasn't. She ran away from home, became a junkie and was at odds with her family because she learned that her father and his politics were completely corrupt.

There's another suicide in the novel. A man recently released from prison goes into a school where a local politician was having a meeting with his constituents. The man had a shotgun and blew his head off in front of the politician.

The whole book is about political corruption and can it really be beneficial if some 'broken eggs are caused during the making of an omlet'.

Scotland stood to benefit mightily from economic growth, but in order to achieve the outcome, lies would be told and people would be murdered to keep the truth from coming out.

Siobhan Clarke plays a minor role in the book. She is one of Rebus's partners. She's much younger, left-leaning, and English. Kind of his polar opposite. They are not romantically involved, but they sure could be.

Her name is pronounced- "Shiv- onne". It's Irish for 'Joan'.

Can an evil plan result in a common good?

Of course, John Rebus cannot abide with this.

I would read anything by Ian Rankin.