A Song for the Dark Times
By Ian Rankin
Orion Books
The very best crime novels give readers big moral questions to ponder. That’s exactly what Scottish author Ian Rankin does in A Song for the Dark Times, the most recent John Rebus mystery.
Rebus, now long retired from the Scottish police and suffering from COPD, gets a call from his daughter Samantha, whose partner has gone missing. Sammy, as Rebus calls her, just might be the prime suspect. With Rebus off to her tiny village in the north of Scotland to investigate, what will he do if she turns out to be responsible? Will he hand her over to police? Or will he interfere with the official investigation to obfuscate the details or point fingers at someone else?
Rankin appeared virtually at the Vancouver Writers’ Festival on Saturday, in conversation with Canadian author Linwood Barclay. Although crime writers are often not taken seriously by the literary establishment, Rankin said he finds a crime novel the perfect vehicle to explore ethical dilemmas. They also allow him to write about a real city, in real time and tackle the most pressing political and social issues of the times, he said.
Rankin said he always writes the title of his novels first, so this title, although it seems apt for covidian times, was actually written pre-pandemic, when he already thought times were dark enough. Covid-19 is not mentioned in the book. The title refers to a collection of songs his former work partner Siobhan Clarke put together on a CD for him, and the actual playlist is available on Spotify.
“Some to make you think, some to calm you down and some to get you dancing,” Siobhan tells Rebus.
“Dancing?”
“Okay, nodding your head then.”
Readers will remember Sammy from Rankin’s earlier books – she was seriously injured in The Hanging Garden, when Rankin himself was wrestling with the news that his youngest son was disabled. This time around, Sammy, who has been living with Keith and their daughter Carrie, is at the centre of a missing persons case.
Rankin says he writes his books “by the seat of his pants,” so as he was writing the first draft, he didn’t know what role Sammy played in her partner’s disappearance, at least not until the plot revealed itself to him.
“I just do what I’ve always done – make stuff up and get away with it,” Rankin said.
In the book, Rebus moves from the second-storey walk up apartment he has lived in throughout the series into a garden-level apartment, because the two flights of stairs are too difficult on his lungs. In real life, Rankin and his wife recently downsized as well. Also, Rankin told the audience, the real apartment that he used as the basis for Rebus’s apartment also recently was up for sale. He wanted to buy it, but says it was too expensive. Too bad – it could have been a tourist attraction to folks renting Rebus’s apartment on Airbnb.
Rebus is Rankin’s alter ego, Rankin says.
“He’s my Mr. Hyde.”
Rankin describes Rebus as a “small-c Conservative” who doesn’t like change.
During the pandemic lockdown, Scottish actor Brian Cox, who stars in Succession, agreed to do a short, hilarious YouTube video as Rebus.
“Finally, after 30 years, I’m getting the guy I want to do Rebus,” Rankin said.
Rest easy, readers. Rebus will be back. There’s even a hint about something that might happen at the end of A Song for the Dark Times.
“I’m not done with Rebus yet,” Rankin says. “There always something else he wants to do.”
I can’t wait.
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