"The Rise" by Ian Rankin

The Rise is a luxury residential building facing London’s Hyde Park. Units start at about 10 million pounds. To no one’s surprise, while all of its residences are owned, few are occupied. Corporations own a few for investments. Foreigners own a few as safe havens. The developer lives in a penthouse on the top floor. 

When the body of the security guard (called a “concierge”) is found in the lobby, the suspects look to be a relatively small group of people. A Middle Eastern princess and her bodyguards. The building’s developer. The wife of a known and much-sought gangster. A young actress whose best days may already be behind her. A Russian oligarch.

 

Detective Sergeant Gish pulls the night call for the murder. She’s working with Detective Inspector Jack Milton, a few months from retirement. Their investigation takes them into the worlds of art, gangsters, crime, affairs, and more. And it is Gish who will slowly but methodically discover what happened. 

 

The Rise is a short story by acclaimed Scottish writer Ian Rankin, author of the Detective John Rebus stories. While it’s described as a short story, it might be more accurate to call it a short-short novel. At 86 pages, it’s one long short story.

 

Ian Rankin

Rankin is an international No. 1 bestselling crime novelist and the author of 40 books, including John Rebus novels, short stories, non-fiction, and other works. He’s received an Edgard Award, a Gold Dagger Award for fiction, a Diamond Dagger Award for career excellence, and the Chandler-Fulbright Award (an international award funded by the estate of detective writer Raymond Chandler). He lives in Edinburgh.

 

Short story or short-short novel, The Rise is an entertaining and gripping story. One wonders if it’s the beginning of a new detective series. If so, it will be something of a branching out from Rankin’s home territory of Scotland, the setting for his Rebus stories and novels. It has the classic Rebus touches – the plodding and exhaustive police investigation, the back alleyways those investigations can discover, and something of a surprise ending.

 

Related:

 

Ian Rankin’s Standing in Another Man’s Grave.

 

Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin.

Some Thursday Readings

 

The Gaza Hostage Crisis is an American Hostage Crisis – Armin Rosen at The Free Press.

 

Murders for October – Jeremy Black at The Critic Magazine on new mystery novels. 

 

Watney Market and Watney Street, Shadwell – A London Inheritance.