Set In Darkness

I have greatly enjoyed other Ian Rankin/Jack Harvey books from Audible - notably The Complaints - as well as other Rebus books I've read in print form. However, I am struggling to stay with this one as the narration is completely over the top: as if the reader is doing a pastiche of a fruity old Scottish actor auditioning for the part of a fruity old Scottish actor. An already dense plot patchwork and a large-ish cast of characters require minimal embellishment in the narration. Rebus's mean streets need a lot less relish.

This audio-book made me realise just how much difference the reader makes to what one thinks of a book. This narrator was the wrong choice. If he is Scottish, I am surprised, as his accent[s] were never convincing and I have to say that I was stunned at how many inhabitants of Edinburgh had accents from various parts of England. There were also too many areas where the narrator tripped up over where to stress a sentence and it was a struggle to make sense of what he was saying.

I don't know how much this influenced my appreciation of the book. I always enjoy Rebus, but am not sure that this was one of the best I have listened to. The Grieve family did not altogether convince me and I felt that there were unexplored back-stories [maybe they come together in a future book ...]. I also struggle with Cafferty - he didn't come across as sufficiently menacing and I don't know how much that was down to the way the book was read, or how Ian Rankin wrote it. But, in either case, whatever possessed Rebus to continually make himself vulnerable to him? I also thought that the process of identifying the murderer didn't quite work.

I like the setting in real time, the discussions around the birth of the Scottish Parliament and the harking back to previous periods in Scottish politics. Also the development of Siobhan. But I wasn't sure how convinced I was by the character of fellow-cop Linford. There is a good cast of supporting characters and, as ever, the city has a part all of its own.