The last of Rebus?

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. Fortunately it takes a great deal more than official suspension to get rid of Rebus, especially when D. C. Siobhan Clarke has been put in charge of the case. And, indeed, part of the brilliance of Exit Music consists of the new complexity of the Siobhan-Rebus relationship in view of the latter’s inevitable retirement and the former’s natural ambitions. The tantalising nature of their sexual connection, if any, is also spelt out. No, they never slept together, for how could they have gone on working together? (Another police couple have made the opposite decision and are suffering the consequences.)

Followers of the Rebus fortunes — the first book, Knots and Crosses, was published in 1987 — will feel an inevitable interest in Siobhan and for that matter in the criminal Big Ger Cafferty who they may or may not feel gets his come-uppance in this book (it’s a wonderful bittersweet ending quite apart from Rebus’ actual retirement).