A Heart Full of Headstones - Ian Rankin

 

Hard as it is for me to believe, A Heart Full of Headstones is Ian Rankin's twenty-fourth John Rebus novel. I haven't read all of them, but I have read most, and by now I think I have a pretty good feel for the kind of man John Rebus is. Maybe that's why the last couple of Rebus novels have left me feeling so sad for him - this one most of all. As A Heart Full of Headstones opens, Rebus sits in a courtroom accused of a crime as serious as many of the ones he investigated in his prime as an Edinburgh cop. But just when Rebus's past seems about to be catching up with him, he throws fuel on his own funeral pyre, and jumps on top the pile all by himself. 

The bulk of A Heart Full of Headstones is spread over the immediate eight days prior to the crime Rebus is accused of having committed, and as John Rebus novels usually do, it includes multiple, simultaneous subplots. One sees Rebus's loyal friend Siobhan Clarke working on the domestic abuse case of a fellow policeman that is about to blow up in the face of the whole department. A second involves DCI Malcolm Fox's push to build a case against a cop he believes to be among the dirtiest of all those he investigated when he was working in Internal Affairs. And the third storyline finds Rebus agreeing to do a personal favor for an elderly crime boss he's battled so closely for so long that the two seem to know more about each other now than their friends and families know about them.

What none of them realize at first is that one Edinburgh cop, a man threatening to rat out his fellow cops, is at the center of all three investigations. And when they do finally realize it, it just might be too late to minimize the damage.

What I find disheartening about A Heart Full of Headstones is exactly what makes the novel so realistic. John Rebus has always considered himself to be a good cop, a man who would do just about anything to protect the innocent and ensure that the bad guys get what is coming to them. Younger policemen still see Rebus as a kind of role model for the most effective kind of policing. If a little embarrassed by that sentiment, Rebus is also maybe a little proud of that status whether he would admit it or not. But now, a man Rebus worked with for years is about to name names and tell stories to save his own hide, and John is forced to admit something to himself he doesn't really want to face...he was a bad cop, one not above lying and falsifying evidence if that's what it took to get a predatory criminal off the streets for a while. His intentions may have been the best, but now Rebus wonders if his willingness to turn a blind eye to the real corruption in the ranks made sure that he was just spinning his wheels the whole time.

Now Rebus is an old man who can barely breathe anymore, and it may just be too late for any kind of personal redemption.

Ian Rankin is one of my favorite crime writers, and John Rebus is one of my very favorite fictional crime fighters, so a new Rebus novel is always something I look forward to reading. Still, I'm sad that Rebus has ended up here after thirty-five years (24 novels from 1987-2022). The next novel in the series will be published in the U.K. in October, and I can't wait to see what's in store for Rebus. Who is he going to end up being?