10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) (89 page)
Read 10 Great Rebus Novels (John Rebus) Online
Authors: Ian Rankin
Both Flight and Rebus listen to their gut feelings as much as they mull over the physical evidence – are they right to do so? They are literally unable to understand each other at first; does this change, and how does Ian Rankin portray their shifting attitudes to one another?
Rebus's relationships with Rhona and Sammy come once more under scrutiny; discuss the ways these have developed from previous books. How does Rebus cope with the fact that Sammy may be sexually active? Does Sammy realise the enormity of what she asks from her father when Kenny disappears?
Rebus has packed a Bible. But later he thinks, ‘
Where was the religion for those who did not feel guilty, did not feel shame, did not regret getting angry or getting even, or, better yet, getting more than even? Where was the religion for a man who believed that good and bad must coexist, even within the individual? Where was the religion for a man who believed in God but not in God's religion?’
Does Rebus find any sort of answer to these questions?
Rebus's experiences are portrayed in the past tense, while the sections portraying the killer's interior monologues are in the present tense. What effect does this have?
Rebus gets Lisa Frazer very wrong; is he a victim of his own vanity in getting involved with her?
When Rebus and Lisa Frazer discuss whether policemen are born pessimists or optimists, are any conclusions drawn?
Is the sandwich-dropped-television-and-dog incident buying into the urban myth tradition?
Ian Rankin very much enjoyed reading Thomas Harris's
The Silence of the Lambs
. Are there any apparent echoes of that type of thriller here?
Rebus has a clearly defined alcoholic blackout – does he attempt to justify this in any way?
Ian Rankin says he learned a valuable lesson while writing this novel, that sex and violence can be suggested without going into ‘graphic and voyeuristic detail’. So how does he deal here with sex and violence?
In a brief cameo Big Ger Cafferty is introduced to the reader for the first time. Why might Ian Rankin have wanted to come back to him in future books?
Discuss whether the clear identification of gender with the Wolfman from the opening line has the effect of alerting the reader or of lulling them into a false sense of security.
To the only Jack I’ve ever stripped
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
Major Barbara
The habit of friendship is matured by constant intercourse.
Edinburgh
,
by Charles McKean
Contents
INTRODUCTION
Strip Jack
was the first of the Rebus novels to be written entirely in the rundown French farmhouse which I’d moved to with my wife in 1990. Our first couple of years there, we put most of our effort into doing the place up: rewiring, putting up ceilings, and trying to cultivate the acre of brambled wilderness around us. The attic became my office. It was accessed by a rickety wooden ladder and a trapdoor. The floor was so badly warped that any pens placed on the desk would roll off with frightening speed. The decor consisted of bus maps of central Edinburgh, postcards of the city’s monuments, and a list of police regions in Scotland.