The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin is the ninth Rebus novel, published in 1998. It is the sequel to Black and Blue, which I read last year. I read the first six Rebus novels in 2016 and have been working my way backwards and forwards through the remainder of the series since I saw Ian Rankin at Cheltenham Literature Festival last year. I’ve only got a few books left to read now!
In The Hanging Garden, Rebus is investigating a suspected war criminal. The elderly man is now a respected academic, but does this hide a dark past?
Meanwhile, things are kicking off between two Edinburgh gangs. Rebus’s nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty, is in prison. A new kid on the block, Tommy Telford, is determined to make his mark on the city. He has some big players on his side from Japan and Russia, but is it enough to take Cafferty down? And is Cafferty still dictating operations from jail or have his men gone rogue?
Rebus tries to help a prostitute who can’t speak English and could give him valuable information about Telford’s gang.
And if that wasn’t enough, his own daughter is fighting for her life in hospital after a hit-and-run. Was it an accident or was someone sending a message to Rebus? He’s prepared to swallow his pride and his professionalism and do a deal with Cafferty to find out.
The Hanging Garden feels much more modern than, for example, Let It Bleed, which I read recently. Computers are now routine rather than a novelty and the police have mobile phones, rather than relying on phone boxes and leaving messages in pubs. But the concept of trafficked women working as prostitutes, which we are sadly now very familiar with, feels like it was something new in 1998.
Siobhan Clarke is still a DC (she is a DS and then a DI in later books) and plays a much smaller role in The Hanging Garden than she does in most of the Rebus books.
Like all the Rebus novels, The Hanging Garden is a real page turner. Can you read it as a standalone novel? You can. The Rebus series is currently 24 books, so reading them all feels quite daunting – hence why I’ve been going backwards and forwards a bit. But if you enjoy thrillers or detective novels, you will enjoy Rebus.
