The blurb on the back of this book says: Rebus is juggling four cases trying to nail one killer – who just might lead back to the infamous Bible John. And he’s doing it under the scrutiny of an internal inquiry led by a man he has just accused of taking backhanders from Glasgow’s Mr Big.
I enjoyed this one too, it takes us away from Edinburgh which is Rebus’s comfort zone and has him travelling over to Glasgow and up to Aberdeen and even over to Shetland and on to an oil rig. The storyline involves the oil industry and a murderer who is going by the name of Johnny Bible, a copycat killer who is styling himself on Bible John who was a real murderer in the Glasgow area in the late 1960s. He was never caught and just ‘disappeared’ making most people believe that he had died.
Black and Blue was published in 1997 and Ian Rankin couldn’t have known that nearly 20 years later a murderer called Peter Tobin was going to kill a young Polish woman whom he knew through their Roman Catholic church – he buried her under the church floor and during the police investigations they realised that he had links to areas where young women had disapperared. Men in their 70s don’t suddenly begin a career in murder.
Tobin had moved to England and had lived at numerous locations, in the garden of one house they found the body of a Scottish teenager who had been abducted from a bus station 20 odd years before. Tobin still had a distinctive bracelet which she had worn and her father was able to identify, and what is even scarier is that Tobin apparently had lots of pieces of women’s jewellery, but he isn’t saying who it all belonged to. The body of another young woman was found at another house he had once lived in and he has been convicted of those murders too. However he claims to have killed 48 women, but won’t give any details. But there is one woman who miraculously survived a Bible John attack, and having seen photographs of Tobin which were taken in the 1960s – she is sure that Tobin is the man who attacked her and left her for dead.
The police photofit picture of Bible John was in every train when I was a 10-12 year old and it was very similar to photographs of Tobin so it would seem that Bible John didn’t die but just carried on killing in different places until he was caught by the Glasgow police as an old man.
So back to the book, Black and Blue was just a bit strange because of the recent developments in the Bible John case and also the fact that Rebus goes ‘on the wagon’ towards the end of the book and starts drinking orange juice, so no Irn Bru was required by me!
I thought I’d put this comment here. It’s about Ian Rankin’s other book, Let It Bleed, the one you suggested I read because of the Forth Road Bridge. This is the second Rebus book I’ve read and I have to say I’m not fond of him. He’s so dark and self-destructive. And, being an animal lover, I hated him for what he did to the cat. However, that opening chapter, with the accident on the bridge, had my adrenaline soaring! My worst nightmare! I think I almost hyperventilated!
Joan,
The Forth Road Bridge bit at the beginning was very scary, especially if you know the bridge. I’m sorry that you didn’t enjoy it much. I quite like a bit of a walk on the wild side now and again. I know what you mean about dark and self-destructive but I think that there is something very Scottish about that sort of writing and it seemed realistic to me. I enjoyed the Edinburgh aspect of it. At the moment I’m reading my third Rebus book but I haven’t enjoyed either of them as much, so I’m giving Rankin a rest. There is not one copy of Can You Forgive Her? – in the Fife library catalogue! So I’m going to have to buy it. There are quite a lot by Angela Thirkell, so I’m putting in requests. What are you reading now?
I’ve just started The Hare With Amber Eyes, which has been recommended several places. I’m a little bored at the moment, but I’m hoping for better. And I’m always reading a mystery. This time it’s Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black. I like her books, although the plots are often quite similar. I’ve read all in the series except the latest.
I’ve been trying to read library books and books of my own that I can then get rid of. I have too many book, like a lot of us do, and have been trying to pare down. When we moved from Massachusetts, I gave the library there about thirty cartons of books. There are books I’ll never get rid of, but there are others that I can give away after reading, and that’s my goal. But so many new books come out all the time! Or I read about books, new and old, recommended on book / reading blogs! No hope!
Joan,
I’m doing exactly the same with my books, hence my 2011 reading list which is mainly books I’ve had for years, but as you say there are plenty that I couldn’t part with. Thirty cartons of books- wow! That’s a lot of books, I take mine to charity shops in plastic carrier bags from time to time. While I’m there I just have to have a look at the books and often come away with more. Well, it’s all good news for the charities.
I’ve GOT to start War and Peace soon but my new bedtime reading will probably be vintage crime. I haven’t read anything by Cara Black.
A million years ago, I worked at a book store chain over the holidays. With my 33% employee discount and being surrounded by all those books, I never brought home any money! I realized then that working in a bookstore was not for me!
The thirty cartons was 15+ years of serious book hoarding and a major clean out. Now I, too, take a bag at a time to a used book store where they give me store credit – to get more books! Are there 12-step programs for people like us?!
I read War and Peace back in the 1970s during a Russian literature period, but I should probably read it again. I’m sure it would be very different to me today.
Joan,
A million years ago I worked in a public library which was great because I could get my hands on new books first. We all loved unpacking books straight from the publishers, that wonderful new book aroma! There probably should be a 12-step programme. Books are the only thing that I would contemplate sniffing, but surreptitiously as people tend to give you strange looks!