Exit Music is the 17th in Ian Rankin’s series of Inspector Rebus novels and  the one that sees the grumpy bugger head off into retirement. Of course, this being Rankin and this being Rebus, the good detective does not go gently into that good night, instead spending his last days investigating a vicious murder and winding up his superiors. Plus ca change, pal.

A seemingly simple murder sees its tendrils snake far into Edinburgh society. The murder may be about localised drug dealing and criminal low-lifes. Or it may be big business and a shady deal with Russian oligarchs. Or possibly ambitiously slick Scottish politicians. This being the valedictory episode, it may even be about Rebus settling an old score, or someone settling one with Rebus.  So many touch points from previous novels are present and correct and the real motive might be any one of them.  Whatever the solution turns out to be, this is intricately plotted stuff, with rounded, credible characters and a fully realised setting. Exit Music is clearly several leagues above the overwhelming majority of crime novels.

Yet admirable as it is, I don’t love the Rebus series as much as I do some others. I certainly recognise the skill and thoroughness with which Rankin realises Rebus’ other Edinburgh. I know he is strong on detail, strong on character and strong on creating his murky world of moral compromise. But, being ultra harsh, in the end it all seems a tad, dare I say it, formulaic. The plot is certainly familiar, with echoes of The Long Good Friday, Get Carter and a hundred urban crime books, and I can’t quite shake the unoriginal thought Rebus is simply Taggart writ large. Certainly Rebus is another in a long line of appealing gruff loners patrolling the moral grey areas, still clearly on the side of Good but cheerfully flicking the Vs to authority at every opportunity. But he’s no Harry Hole.

However, this is probably just churlish quibbling about who sits where at crime fiction’s top table.  From humble-ish beginnings as a purveyor of seedy-ish potboilers, Rankin has developed an entire world with novel-spanning plotlines and recurring themes. In Exit Music Rebus has become a man out of time trying to shape the investigation, to bend to his will, to hold back time. To little avail. At one point, Rebus confronts his long-time criminal alter ego, Big Ger Cafferty, with a growing sense that modern Edinburgh has no place for either of them. Yet for all this drawing down of blinds, there is little sense Exit Music will be the last Rebus novel. I doubt the follow up to Exit Music will see Rebus tending an Edinburgh allotment but even if it does, if it is as good as Exit Music then it will be well worth waiting for.

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