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Saints of the Shadow Bible by Ian Rankin

Published on November 15, 2013May 26, 2019 by Margaret2 Comments

I finished reading the latest Rebus book, Saints of the Shadow Bible a few days ago and have been wondering what to write about it that would do it justice. Ian Rankin is one of my favourite authors and his Rebus books never fail to impress me both with their ingenuity and the quality of their plots and characterisations – Saints of the Shadow Bible is no exception. In fact, I think it’s one of the best – a realistic and completely baffling mystery.

Rebus is now back on the force, the rules on retirement age having changed, but as a Detective Sergeant, not a DI and Siobhan Clarke is his boss. It begins with the discovery of a crashed car, on the face of it just a straight forward road traffic accident but it soon develops into a complex, multi-layered case, linking back to one of Rebus’s early cases on the force as a young Detective Constable. A case that with the changes in the double jeopardy law in Scotland can be reopened.

Rebus has always been an outsider, not one to play completely by the rules but his past gets put under scrutiny when Inspector Malcolm Fox investigates that case from the 1980s. There are suspicions that Rebus and his colleagues, who called themselves ‘The Saints of the Shadow Bible’ were involved in covering up a crime, allowing a murderer to go free.

The ‘Shadow Bible’ was a copy of Scots Criminal Law, a big black book

‘with a leather cover and brass screws. And we all spat on it and rubbed it in until it was dry. I thought it was a kind of oath, but it wasn’t – we were saying the rules could go to hell, because we knew we were better. We were the ones in the field …

The evidence was tainted, interviews hadn’t been conducted properly. How was Rebus involved, was he a Saint, and just how much did he know as a very junior member of the team?

The interaction between Rebus and Fox is one of the joys of this book as unlike Rebus, Fox does play by the rules. Ah, but does he? Beneath his controlled exterior Fox is just as much a loose cannon as Rebus, he’s not a team player either and it is fascinating to see how Rebus gets under his skin and reveals Fox’s true nature. For Rebus and Fox it’s the job that matters, but can they trust each other?

I wonder, though, just how much I would have enjoyed it if this was the first Rebus book I’d read. I have a feeling that I wouldn’t. There are characters who were in earlier books and references to previous cases which would have been lost on me otherwise. The first Rebus book I read was Set in Darkness (the 11th book) and whilst I had no difficulty in following who was who and their relationships I realised then that I had to read the books in order to fully understand the background and how the characters had evolved. I felt they were real people and I wanted to know more about them. I then went back to the beginning (Knots and Crosses) and read them in sequence, right up to the present day.

It’s all been an exhilarating and most enjoyable journey and I have a sneaking suspicion that this may indeed be the end – who knows? Only Ian Rankin and he isn’t telling, but he’s off on a year’s sabbatical in February and by then Rebus will almost be due a second retirement.

Book Beginnings: The Midwich Cuckoos

Published on November 15, 2013 by Margaret7 Comments

Every Friday Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Friday, where you can share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires..

I’ve borrowed The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham from the Kindle Lending Library and have only read the opening paragraphs so far. I’ve liked other books by Wyndham, such as Chocky, The Chrysalids, and The Kraken Wakes, so I’m expecting to enjoy this one too.

It begins:

One of the luckiest accidents in my wife’s life is that she happened to marry a man who was born on the 26th of September. But for that, we should both of us undoubtedly have been at home in Midwich on the night of the 26th-27th, with consequences which, I have never ceased to be thankful, she was spared.

According to the reviews on Amazon this Kindle version is full of grammatical errors and typos, so I’m hoping I can overlook them and enjoy this book set in the sleepy English village of Midwich, where a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious.

The Classics Spin for November/December

Published on November 14, 2013 by Margaret10 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Spin.

I’m using the list I had for the last Spin with a couple of new titles to replace the ones I’ve read/am reading. The last Spin gave me My Antonia by Willa Cather and I’m currently reading Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

I don’t really mind which one comes up in this Spin, which is another way of saying I can’t decide which of these to read first. I’ll know next Monday when the Spin result is announced.

Lady Susan, The Watsons, Sanditon by Jane Austen
Out of Africa by Karen Blixen
The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Man Who Was Thursday by G K Chesterton
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices by Charles Dickens
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Where Angels Fear to Tread by E M Forster
Washington Square by Henry James
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Walden by Henry James Thoreau
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Time Machine by H G Wells
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

Read Scotland 2014

Published on November 13, 2013 by Margaret3 Comments

It had to happen. As soon as I think I’ll cut down on taking part in challenges one crops up that interests me. It’s Peggy Ann’s Challenge, Read Scotland 2014.

The title says it all really, read and review Scottish books -any genre, any form- written by a Scottish author (by birth or immigration) or about or set in Scotland. There are 4 levels:

Just A Keek (a little look): 1-4 books read
The Highlander: 5-8 books
The Hebridean: 9-12 books
Ben Nevis: 13+ books

I have more than enough books by Scottish authors sitting waiting to be read to go for the Hebridean level, if not the Ben Nevis level – and this will fit in very well with the 2014 Mount TBR Reading Challenge too. Actually I’m thinking of this as a sub-challenge within the TBR Challenge, so I’m not adding to the number of challenges for next year :)

To sign up go to Peggy Ann’s blog, Peggy Ann’s Post.

First Chapter: Instructions for a Heatwave

Published on November 12, 2013 by Margaret15 Comments

Every Tuesday Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros, where you can share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book you are reading or thinking about reading soon.

I’ve just started to read Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell. I loved an earlier book by her, The Hand That First Held Mine, and so far this one looks just as good.

It begins:

The heat, the heat. It wakes Gretta just after dawn, propelling her from her bed and down the stairs. It inhabits the house like a guest who has outstayed his welcome: it lies along corridors, it circles around curtains, it lolls heavily on sofas and chairs. The air in the kitchen is like a solid entity filling the space, pushing Gretta down onto the floor, against the side of the table.

Only she would choose to bake bread in such weather.

I like this opening, setting the scene and establishing the heat as a physical presence, a character to be reckoned with. This is July 1976 and London is in the grip of a heatwave. (It was not just London, because I remember it very well where I was living in Cheshire in the north-west.) Gretta’s husband pops out of the house to buy a newspaper – but he doesn’t come back – this is a story of a family in crisis.

I’m drawn into this book right from the beginning – what do you think? Would you keep reading?

Remembrance Sunday

Published on November 10, 2013 by Margaret2 Comments

Today is Remembrance Sunday, the closest Sunday to 11 November (Armistice Day) marking the anniversary of the end of the First World War in 1918. Remembrance Sunday is held to commemorate those who served the country in two world wars and in more recent conflicts. There will be the traditional two-minute silence at the Cenotaph on Whitehall today and tomorrow at 11 minutes past the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month – the symbolic time of the ending of the First World War.

Poppy Day was first held on November 11, 1921. The idea of wearing poppies in remembrance of the dead came from the poem In Flanders Fields by a Canadian medical officer, John McCrae, who did not survive the war. It is now a national tradition.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

The First World War began in 1914, ending on 11 November 1918. The young men who joined the army had no idea what horrors were ahead of them. During 1915 however, the true character of the war began to emerge with the slaughter on the Western Front.

May, 1915

Let us remember Spring will come again
To the scorched, blackened woods, where all the wounded trees
Wait, with their old wise patience for the heavenly rain,
Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing breeze,
Sure of the sun. And even as to these
Surely the Spring, when God shall please
Will come again like a divine surprise
To those who sit to-day with their great Dead, hands in their hands, eyes in their eyes,
At one with Love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered things and changing skies.

Charlotte Mew

Poems from A Corner of a Foreign Field: The illustrated Poetry of the First World War selected by Fiona Waters. This is a collection of poems, some written on the battlefields and some with the benefit of hindsight, poems by men and women recording the experience of their daily lives, the war and its horrors and privations, poems of courage and comradeship in the face of darkest adversity.