Ian Rankin begins a new detective series featuring 'Foxy'

By Ian Rankin

Arthur Books/Little Brown. 438 pp. $24.

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Reviewed by Deen Kogan

Ian Rankin, Scotland's internationally acclaimed crime writer, has hit the jackpot once again with

The Complaints

, the first in a new series featuring Inspector Malcolm Fox, a worthy successor to Inspector John Rebus, one of contemporary crime fiction's most admired protagonists.

Rankin energized the Scottish literary scene with Knots & Crosses in 1987, the first Rebus novel, and concluded the series in 2007 with Exit Music. Worldwide devotees of this quintessential Edinburgh detective went into mourning.

To Rankin's creative credit, Fox is very different from Rebus, a hard-drinking, solitary realist who reached retirement age as the series progressed. As complex as Rebus, Fox, a recovering alcoholic, is younger, divorced, with a sister in an abusive relationship and a father failing in a costly nursing home. He is an established star in Complaints and Conduct, the official title for the office whose cops investigate other cops, just as the Internal Affairs units do in the United States.

Complaints is called the Dark Side by the rest of the police force. It's a small unit with just three cops, who are universally disliked by other divisions.

As in the Rebus series, Rankin writes about Edinburgh, not the tourist-brochure city of kilts, tams, and bagpipes but the city of crime, violence, and very nasty people. This Edinburgh is not a very pleasant place. Fox (Foxy to the rest of his department) has just completed a successful investigation and is immediately charged with looking after Jamie Breck, a young detective at another station suspected of dealing in child pornography. The plot melds murder, a bone-chilling winter, and the financial chaos in Scotland with the unexpected relationship that develops between Fox and Jamie, and threatens both of their careers. Nothing is ever as it seems and the question comes: Who decides right from wrong?

A stunning quality of Rankin's writing is the truth of language. The voice is so dynamic and unique that his characters leap off the page; the reader hears them speak, and the rhythm of dialogue and story is almost intoxicating. The why and who are paramount. The first page of The Complaints sets the tone:

"There was a smattering of applause as Malcolm Fox entered the room.

" 'Don't strain yourselves,' he said, placing his scuffed briefcase on the desk nearest the door. There were two other Complaints in the office. They were already getting back to work as Fox slipped out of his overcoat. Three inches of snow had fallen overnight in Edinburgh. A similar amount had stopped London dead a week ago, but Fox had managed to get into work and so, by the look of it, had everyone else. The world outside felt temporarily cleansed. There had been tracks in Fox's garden - he knew there was a family of foxes somewhere near his estate; the houses backed onto a municipal golf course. His nickname at police HQ was 'Foxy', but he didn't think of himself that way. 'A bear of a man' - that was the way one of his previous bosses had described him. Slow but steady and only occasionally to be feared."

Ian Rankin has won most of the literary awards for crime fiction today including the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar and England's Gold Dagger. He does live in Edinburgh, and might be considered the reigning writer of Scottish crime fiction.

A second Malcolm Fox is in the works. No publication date is set, but stand by. Judging by The Complaints, a second in the series will be well worth the wait.