Six favorite Scottish writers:

Arthur Conan Doyle: Elementary.

Robert Louis Stevenson: For Kidnapped alone -- though his Edinburgh Picturesque Notes, even 150 years after their first publication, remain one of the best portraits of Edinburgh you'll ever read, and his short stories are right up there with the best of them.

Ian Rankin: The man who made Edinburgh a character in his novels unlike any other, to the point of making you feel you'd know your way around even if you never actually get to visit.

Josephine Tey: In the space of a mere 200 pages or so, she revolutionized modernity's perception of Richard III.  Alas, she only wrote a handful of novels and plays and I've yet to explore even all of those, but what I've read of her, I like enormously.

Val McDermid: Tough, no-nonsense crime fiction featuring strong, independent women investigators; including and in particular the Karen Pirie series (also (chiefly) set in Edinburgh).

Peter May: Nobody captures the Western Highlands and the Hebrides like him -- particularly the stark, windswept beauty of Harris and Lewis.

(Task: Tell us: Who is your favorite Scottish (or Scots-born / -descendant) writer?)

Knots & Crosses is the first book in the Inspector John Rebus series and I wasn´t prepared just how much of a messed up character Rebus is. He is full blown drama walking on two legs. He has family problems, he is estranged from his brother, he isn´t good at his job, he is clearly haunted by something that has happened in his past ... and yet I ended up really liking his characters. Which is odd, because normally I dislike characters who are miserable all the time and sometimes I´m incredibly annoyed by them.  

And it was such a gripping read. I almost read it in one sitting, something which almost never happens with me. The only thing I was put off by was the very abrupt ending. I like a little bit more closure in my books. 

Leith was trying to improve itself. Someone somewhere had decided to give it a bit of dust and a wash. It boasted French-style cafés and wine bars, studio flats, delicatessen. But it was still Leith, still the old port, an echo of its roaring, bustling past when Bordeaux wines would be unloaded by the gallon and sold on the streets from a horse and a cart. If Leith retained nothing else, it would retain a port´s mentality, and a port´s traditional drinking dens. 

This seems a bit dated (this book is from 1987). Being to Leith myself twice over the last couple of years and having seen the modernized version of this part of town, I didn´t get the impression that Leith kept a whole lot of its old port mentality. 

Mystery, definitely. 

For one thing, I'm a total chicken -- I can't look at blood (not even, or rather, especially not my own, e.g. in medical procedures); and anything shocking, spooky, or otherwise unnaturally unsettling just has me running for the rafters.  That's particularly true at night -- which is when I'm doing a good deal of my reading -- but basically, it applies 24/7.  So that not only rules out slashers and other forms of gory horror, but pretty much any and all forms of psychological horror as well.  The only stories typically classified as "horror" that I can go near are classics where I essentially know what's going to happen from the word "go" (e.g., Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), or ghost stories (mostly classics as well) where the appearance of the ghost(s) is (1) in itself not overly unsettling, at least not in the way in which it is presented to the reader, and / or (2) tied to a larger point that the author is trying to make.  (E.g.  most of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, Charles Dickens's The Signalman and -- of course -- A Christmas Carol and The Chimes, and Oscar Wilde's hilarious send-up of the genre, The Canterville Ghost.)  Edgar Allan Poe is a special case ... I do love some of his writing (e.g., The Masque of the Red Death and The Raven), but The Tell-Tale Heart creeped the hell out of me way back in high school, and that cat story (which shall remain unnamed in this post) ... well, let's just say once was once too often.

And then -- well, I became a mystery reader all the way back in elementary school, and that was probably the most formative reading experience of my entire life.  It started with a series of books specifically targeting elementary school kids, whose (idiomatic) title went straight to my little smarta$$ jugular, challenging me to demonstrate I had what it took to solve them.  From there, it was practically guaranteed I'd move on to and love the Three Investigators series -- by which time my mom had caught on once and for all, too, and in short order presented me with my first Agatha Christie -- After the Funeral, which for that reason alone will always be one of my personal favorites.  And the rest, as they say, is history!

I've long stopped looking "just" for clever puzzles in mysteries, although that is still at least one of the things I want to see -- it takes a lot of other things in a book to work well for me if I've solved the mystery early on and still end up liking the book.  But on the other hand, I'll be just as unhappy if I can't connect, on some level or other, with the main character (or if not them, at least an important supporting character) -- or if I'm presented with shallowly drawn, cardboard or just flat out boring characters, or if the plot just ties one trope onto the next or is otherwise devoid of originality.  In other words, a mystery that works for me will always be more than merely the hunt for a killer (or other criminal, as the case may be) -- it will be a complex blend of well-drawn, individual characters and an intelligent plot, and ideally the characters will also have some other (e.g., personal) challenges to deal with on their journey to the mystery's solution.

Since I also love historical fiction (and nonfiction), historical mysteries are a particular favorite -- provided they're well-researched, such as Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael series (a long-time favorite) and C.J. Sansom's Shardlake series (my most recent "must-read" series) --, but I've never lost my love for the Golden Age classics -- next to Christie, in particular Sherlock Holmes and everything Dorothy L. Sayers, as probably everybody here knows -- and am thrilled to also see Golden Age crime fiction above and beyond the eternal great ones making such a huge comeback in recent years.  Martin Edwards, the current president (and chief archivist) of both the Detection Club and the Crime Writers' Association, may not be everybody's cup of tea personally, but there's no denying that his lobbying for the revival of Golden and Silver Age crime fiction has a lot to do with this, and I think he deserves huge plaudits on those grounds alone.  That said, P.D. James's writing (and her Inspector Dalgliesh) also has had a special place in my heart for longer than I can remember ... and I'm inordinately happy to have discovered many more great women crime writers and women detectives in recent years; most recently, Joy Ellis's Jackman and Evans series (*waves to Jennifer*).

Oh, and for the record, the "I can't look at blood" thing applies to mysteries as well, of course -- which is one of the reasons why as a rule I don't read serial killer books; nor any other mysteries where I know, going in, that the corpse or the crime scene will be described in gratuitously graphic terms.   [She said, side-eying J.K. Rowling for the second Cormoran Strike book, which definitely should come with a warning label attached.]  However, I am not at all opposed to grit and grime in a mystery's setting -- in fact, I particularly enjoy both classic noir crime fiction (with Raymond Chandler a particular favorite) and modern crime fiction that takes a look at the state of society, such as Michael Connelly's and Ian Rankin's books.

This post is overdue, and I can't seem to find time to do it right. So, I won't. Here's a quick and dirty way to get it taken care of. I wish I had it in me to do a better job, but I don't. Here's the blurb taken from Rankin's site:

Retirement doesn’t suit John Rebus. He wasn’t made for hobbies, holidays or home improvements. Being a cop is in his blood.

So when DI Siobhan Clarke asks for his help on a case, Rebus doesn’t need long to consider his options.

Clarke’s been investigating the death of a senior lawyer whose body was found along with a threatening note. On the other side of Edinburgh, Big Ger Cafferty – Rebus’s long-time nemesis – has received an identical note and a bullet through his window.

Now it’s up to Clarke and Rebus to connect the dots and stop a killer.

Meanwhile, DI Malcolm Fox joins forces with a covert team from Glasgow who are tailing a notorious crime family. There’s something they want, and they’ll stop at nothing to get it.

It’s a game of dog eat dog – in the city, as in the wild.

Even Dogs in the Wild brings back Ian Rankin’s greatest characters in a story exploring the darkest corners of our instincts and desires.

If I had the time to do this properly, here are the things I'd be talking about.

• Rebus as consultant/PI -- this is really the perfect role for him, he's not that great at procedure anyway. Calling his own shots, following his instincts, going about things, he's a better fit for this kind of thing than a certain retired LAPD Detective.

• This proves to be the kind of case made for Rebus -- the solution lays in the past, but the ramifications are in the present.

• Cafferty isn't the suspect here (he's not innocent, he never is), but he's the victim -- and maybe a concerned citizen?

• There's little in Crime Fiction better than Rebus and Cafferty on the same page -- that's as true here as ever.

• Clarke's role seemed diminished in favor of Fox and Rebus (particularly the former), but maybe that's just me -- what she does, however, allows Rebus to do what he does best

• The Clarke/Fox friendship is an interesting one -- and different from the Clarke/Rebus friendship. I'll enjoy watching this develop.

• I'm already really enjoying the Fox/Rebus friendship/mentorship. That's not something anyone would've seen coming the first time we met Fox, or the first time we saw the two of them cross paths. The fact that they've got a strange friendship/mentorship going on is just wonderful.

• There's more going on in Fox's personal life than we've really ever seen with Rebus or Clarke on an extended basis.

• Fox's share of the story is really strong and displays the character we've come to know over the past few novels, but evolving to take on some of Rebus' better traits, but none of his . . . well, worse.

• For a period of time, through no fault of his own, Rebus takes guardianship over a small dog. This was just fantastic and one of my favorite things to happen to him in years.

Combine all of the above with Rankin's consummate skill and you've got another winner -- the twentieth Rebus book and the character, the writing, and the perspective is a strong and fresh as it ever was. A sure-fire win for old fans that would probably convert a newbie, too.