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EDINBURGH’S master story teller, Ian Rankin is back with a bang in his latest crime fiction novel, The Complaints. As always, Rankin’s novels happened in real time. Inspector Rebus aged over the twenty-year interval between his debut in Knots and Crosses and the final story Exit Music. Rebus attended crime scenes uncovered during the building of the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood and was there in the background when President George Bush fell off his bicycle at the G8 conference in Gleneagles Hotel. He moved in and out of real events.
The same is true of his new police character Inspector Malcolm Fox. Fox is a copper who investigates other coppers; a member of the despised Complaints and Conduct Department, ‘The Complaints’. This story is set around the credit crunch and the virtual collapse of the Bank of Scotland, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the property market. Fox watches DVDs he bought cheap in the final Zavvi sale. He mourns the loss of Woolworths even though he hadn’t actually shopped there for years.
After a successful case against a really dirty cop, Fox is asked to investigate a bright young detective who is suspected of downloading child porn. In a period of two weeks a number of problems in his personal life become intertwined with this investigation. As his investigation proceeds, Fox has to juggle the lives of his frail father and his abused sister, and a murder too close to home for comfort.
Reviewed by David Kerr
Counter Culture 