Rankin’s new sleuth proves up to the task

The reigning king of Scottish detective novels, best known for 26 books featuring rogue detective John Rebus, takes readers south to London for The Heights, his first standalone book in nearly two decades.

Ian Rankin’s new protagonist, Det. Sgt. Gillian Gish, at first seems tamer than the iconic Rebus. She has transferred to London in part to care for her failing mother, for example, but is not above stretching the rules when she feels the need for urgency, and was known for an occasional streak of recklessness from her previous posting.

In British detective fiction, it’s usually the council tower blocks that are rampant with bad guys, but Rankin situates this tale in a decidedly more upscale locale.

The Heights of the title is a new, extremely expensive 18-storey highrise with a view of Hyde Park that doesn’t impress Gish, who grew up in the gritty inner-city area of Tottenham and is back in the family home because mom, who has the onset of dementia, needs help from Gish and friends and neighbours.

She gets a call out to the ostentatious tower because a security guard (concierge, if you live there) has been found dead at his lobby station on a night that one of the inhabitants has thrown a big party, thus increasing the list of possible witnesses/suspects from your run-of-the-mill killing.

The deceased’s brother was DJing at the party and was thrown out by a couple of thugs working for the hostess, the wife of a gangster whose whereabouts are unknown and who Gish’s new partner Jack Milton has been trying to take down for most of his career (he’s desperately hoping to reach that goal before his fast-nearing retirement).

To top it off, the security camera footage during the time of the killing has been erased and a slew of residents are reluctant to help police, seemingly trying to hide something. Gangsters, a Russian who acts as a front for oligarchs by buying property in his name, an actress with a waning career, a popular singer and his watcher are all in the police sights.

The developer/owner of The Heights, Allan Franklyn, is being cagey as well, not wanting any bad publicity for a building which still has unsold units and with plans for The Heights 2 underway.

Franklyn’s father was a well-known boxer with a connection to gangster Eddie Gallacher and when he told his father he’d received funding from the man and that the money was safe in housing, dad set him right: “You don’t build houses do you? You build safe deposit boxes — and we all know what can happen to those.”

No shortage of suspects, then, but also no shortage of roadblocks as the detectives endeavour to solve the murder. And then, another body is found in the trunk of the Russian’s car in the underground garage.

Gish is an interesting character and, if not as gritty as some of Rankin’s cops, shows some brains, initiative and spunk as she deals with the dead bodies at hand, and her partner’s sometimes absence as he works off the books with a friend in the National Crime Agency in an attempt to locate and arrest gangster Gallacher.

Besides the hugely successful Rebus series, Rankin is the author of 11 other novels, three short-story books and three plays. The Heights was expanded from a previously published story, The Rise, and is a welcome addition to the author’s lengthy portfolio.

Chris Smith is a Winnipeg writer.