"Rather Be the Devil" by Ian Rankin

John Rebus, formerly a detective inspector with the police in Edinburgh, is retired. He’s fighting a nagging cough that erupts into serious hacking. He had to get a spot on his lung biopsied, but he’d rather not think about it. He has a romance going with Deborah Quant, the coroner, and under her influence he’s given up smoking (mostly) and is trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle.

He becomes intrigued with an old murder case, a cold case of a woman who married well and played around even more well. Proof of any suspect’s guilt was never found, but the list of suspects included a popular singer, his manager and the woman’s former lover, her husband, and perhaps half a dozen other people. Rebus has his former detective sergeant borrow the cold case file, and he eventually has a talk with the detective who was involved in the investigation and is now a doorman for nightclubs. Less than a day after the conversation, the man turns up dead.

The police are also investigating a missing, possibly dead, financial management guy, who appears to have had ties to organized crime, including the up-and-coming new boss of Edinburgh. The new boss gets attacked by someone with a baseball bat, and suspicion falls on the down-and-going crime boss Gerald Cafferty, Rebus’s old acquaintance, nemesis, and sometime cooperative informer. 

Ian Rankin

Rebus suspects all of these cases, including the cold case, may be connected. But the powers that be in Police Scotland, bean counters, degree-holders, and ambitious professionals, are more aggravated with Rebus’s involvement than appreciative of his help. Didn’t this guy retire? And how does he keep getting past the front desk of police headquarters, and helping himself to tea?

Rather Be the Devil by Ian Rankin is a classic John Rebus story. Rebus may be older and occasionally ailing, but he’s lost none of his instincts for where a crime might have come from, and where it might be headed.

Rankin is an international Number 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.

Rather Be the Devil is John Rebus (and his author) in top form. Retired doesn’t mean dead, although Rebus keeps an eye out for his back. The story if a solid mix of a cold case, organized crime, and motives old and new.

Related:

My review of Ian Rankin’s Standing in Another Man’s Grave.

“A Tamale Christmas” by Linda Rodante

Manny Rodriguez had transferred from a community college in Florida to Appalachian Christian College in the mountains. He has considerable doubts about the transfer, but he felt led to make the change. And what he’s found so far is a bit of antagonism against Hispanics and an almost-hostile single mother, aiming her almost-hostility right at him, attending the school. A woman with a bany and no husband attending a Christian school?

Jessica Saltare flares into instant defensiveness whenever she sees or runs into Manny Rodriguez. He’s several years older, and he is a vivid reminder of the man who raped her, her mother’s boyfriend who happened to be Hispanic.

Linda Rodante

What eventually brings them together is a college Christmas program, to help raise money to replace a stolen nativity scene. Manny suggests a Latino Christmas like he knows at home in Florida. He even has a recipe for tamales.

A Tamale Christmas is a novella by Linda Rodante, using the same college setting and some of the same characters from several books in the Dangerous Series of Christian romantic suspense novels. The series currently includes seven books: Amber Alert, As Long as You Both Shall Live, Splashdown, Looking for Justice, Honor Respect Devotion, Pursued, and Warrior. Rodante has worked with both crisis pregnancy centers and anti-trafficking groups, and that experience infuses her fiction. She lives in Tennessee.

It’s a story of two dissimilar people who at first struggle to understand each other, until they gradually look beyond surface appearances. And when that happens, love can’t be far behind.

Related:

My review of Looking for Justiceby Linda Rodante.

Poets and Poems: Rachael Allen and “Kingdomland”

Have you experienced an assault by a vinegar wind? Have you seen the man selling peacock features on the roundabout? Are your curtains full of soot? Is your table gilded with international meats? Have you seen tea stirred in a cruel way?

These, and more, are the images and metaphors of the poems of Kingdomland by British poet Rachael Allen. It’s a strange landscape she describes, one that is unfamiliar and oddly recognizable simultaneously. The images, and the poems they’re embedded in, are jarring and perplexing (she notes that several of the poems in the collection were inspired by artworks).. And yet all of us have had nights of poor sleep, failed relationships, memorable summers in our youth, and not recognizing our own faces in the mirror. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“To Be a Queen” by Annie Whitehead

Any writer of historical fiction will emphasize the importance of research – a lot of research. Once the research is done, assuming it’s ever really “done,” the temptation becomes trying to pack too much of the research into the story. Even in historical fiction, the story is paramount.

In To Be a Queen, the historical account of Aethelflaed or the “Lady of the Mercians,” author Annie Whitehead gets the balance of research and story exactly right. And what a story she tells!

Aethelflaed (ca. 870 to 918A.D.) was the daughter of Alfred the Great, King of the English based in Wessex. The most significant fact of this entire period was the repeated invasions by and battles with the Vikings. The Viking threat framed Aethelflaed’s life, as it did the lives of her father, her brother Edward, her husband Aethelred, and the entire people of the British Isles.

Aethelred, lord of the Mercians, becomes allied with Alfred to fight the Vikings. They’re successful, and to cement the alliance between Wessex and Mercia, Alfred gives his daughter Aethelflaed in marriage to Aethelred. Whitehead creates a love interest for Aethelflaed, one closer to her age, but the young girl knows what her royal duty is. Her considerably older husband is aware of her love for another man, but wisely bides his time. 

In the story, Aethelflaed eventually comes to love her husband deeply and earns the respect of the Mercian people, to the degree that they accept her as their ruler when Aethelred is struck down by illness and later dies. She holds the distinction of being the only woman ever to ruled an Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

The heart of the story is in its details – the accounts of day-to-day activities (royal women worked, often just like non-royal women), the love stories Whitehead builds, Aethelflaed’s many miscarriages, and the personalities of the characters themselves, including the heroines, heroes, and villains. What makes this historical novel even more interesting is that what is known of the Mercians is what was written down by their enemies and allies; no first-hand, Mercian accounts of their rulers and history exist. 

Annie Whitehead

Whitehead, a member of the Royal Historical Society and the Historical Writers Association. She has published three novels set in Mercia: To Be a Queen (2013); Alvar the Kingmaker (2016); and Cometh the Hour (2017). She has also published the non-fiction work Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom (2018). Her books have won a number of prizes and recognitions, and she is a frequent contributor to anthologies on English history and a lecturer. She blogs at Casting Light upon the Shadow and Time Traveler.

To Be a Queen is a rousing story, well researched and expertly told, of a woman who served and ruled in a perilous time. 

Related:

My review of Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom by Annie Whitehead.

Angle-Saxon Kingdoms: Art, Word, War.

1066: What Fates Impose – a novel by G.K. Holloway.

Glass Island – a novel by Gareth Griffith.

Top illustration: a 13th century representation of Aethelflaed, found in The Cartulary and Customs of Abingdom Abbey (1220 A.D.). 

Return of the sheep

After Ezekiel 34:11-24

It’s not only the simple matter

of the sheep coming home

from places scattered;

it is more. It begins 

with the noticing of absence,

which assumes the understanding

of presence; then comes

the seeking out, the search. 

The shepherd goes forward,

looking. And more: the search

isn’t only the simple matter

of looking, but extends to rescue

from wherever the sheep

have been scattered on that day

of clouds and darkness. And

then the sheep are led home.

Photograph by Adrian Infernus via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

Writer and photographer Chris Arnade has been getting considerable attention for his book Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back-Row America. Historian Thomas Kidd tales a look at the book, and takes it a step further by asking what should the church be doing? 

Some 30 years ago, when I was working on a master’s degree, I discovered the early church father Tertullian. He was one of the first and early Christian apologists, and he had no qualms about calling out the Romans for their hypocrisy in how they treated the Christian faith. He had been an attorney, and he used Latin to language and his understanding of Roman law to breathe fire. Casey Chalk at The Imaginative Conservative looks at where the idea of religious freedom and liberty came from, and he finds it in Tertullian.

I laughed when I saw the title, and then I read the article. Nathan Eshelman at Gentle Reformation says that, if you enjoy your freedom, you might want to thank a Presbyterian. 

I love London, and so do a lot of crime writers. Caz Frear at CrimeReads takes a look at this largest of British cities, and she says that in many crime stories, London is far more than a setting. It’s actually a character in the story.

More Good Reads

Faith

An $8.2 Million Judgment, Over $8.2 Million in Royalties Given Away, and God’s Sovereign Grace in Your Life and Mine – Randy Alcorn at Eternal Perspective Ministries. 

What to Do When You’re a Christian But Aren’t Growing Anymore – Alex Sanfilippo at Daily Paradigm Shift.

How Many of the Founding Fathers Went to “Seminary”? – Thomas Kidd at The Gospel Coalition.

Poetry

A grace of cedars – Kathleen Everett at The Courser of Our Seasons.

Clarity and Obscurity: The Essences of Classical & Modern Poetry – Adam Sedia at The Imaginative Cosnervative.

John Terpstra – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Lewisvaldi – Seth Myers at An Unexpected Journal.

Culture

Art vs. Morally Therapeutic Barbarism – Rod Dreher at The American Conservative.

American Stuff

Vicksburg or Gettysburg? LeRoy Gresham’s Words – Sarah Kay Bierle at Emerging Civil War.

One Man, One Choice, One Moment: Joshua Chamberlain and the Impact of a Principled Life – Timothy Padgett at BreakPoint.

British Stuff

The Senses in Anglo-Saxon England – Annie Whitehead at Casting Light upon the Shadow .

Photography

Your pictures on the theme of ‘Pathways’ – BBC News (Hat Tip: J of India).

Writing and Literature

The Wit, Wisdom, and Noirs of James M. Cain – Dwyer Murphy at CrimeReads.

News Media

The Death of My Hometown Newspaper – Bob Trube at Bob on Books.

Dueling Banjos – Bluegrass Style

Painting: Old Woman Reading, oil on canvas by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669).

A wick

After Isaiah 42:1-13

A wick burning

faintly, a reed

bruised, an aim

unwavering, a courage

undaunted, a servant

delighting the soul

of his master, a servant

infused with the master’s

spirit. And so behold:

the servant comes,

singing.

Photograph by Alex Holyoake via Unsplash. Used with permission.