This was all commendable stuff but there was more substance bubbling underneath the surface. I mentioned at the top of this chapter that
Knots and Crosses
was Rankin’s
third
novel; what about the first two?
To this day, Rankin’s first attempt at a novel (and I’m not including the 40 page effort
from his formative years) remains unissued. Apparently a spoof black comedy, which he jokingly told me he would have to dust off someday and make fit for publication,
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the book is set in a Highland hotel and features a one-legged schizophrenic librarian, a young boy with special powers, and the abduction of a famous American novelist by the ‘provisional wing’ of the Scottish National Party. The
book was called
Summer Rites
and still makes Rankin smile when talking about it today.
The book was rejected outright by publishers. One mentioned that the last third needed re-writing, something Rankin wasn’t prepared to do at the time. If this was due to his confidence in the story or the pressures of his studies is unclear, but suffice to say Rankin isn’t too sure where this first manuscript
is now; there was only one copy and it was written in the days before he had a computer!
The impression he gives of this book is akin to a Tom Sharpe novel and perhaps as much as a departure from the style he has become famous for as his fourth novel
Westwind
(Barrie & Jenkins, 1990).
Westwind
was a British/American political thriller concerning a British astronaut called Mike Dreyfuss and the
launching of a new communications satellite.
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It wasn’t until 1991 that
Hide and Seek
, the second Rebus novel, was published, some five years after the first novel and six years since the birth of the character. So of his first five published novels, only two featured John Rebus. His third published novel
Watchman
featured the journalist Jim Stevens, who had appeared in
Knots and Crosses
, so
it was this character that had the first ‘sequel’, not Rebus!
It is doubtful if Rankin ever considered a series about a journalist but what all this does prove is that Rebus wasn’t paramount in Rankin’s mind for quite some time. Rankin was keen to try other ideas and genres, starting with black comedy –
Summer Rites
.
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In March 1985 Rankin was still studying the novels of Muriel Spark but in
the Introduction to the Collector’s Edition of
Knots and Crosses
(Orion, 2007) he admitted that his thesis ‘was proving less important to me than my own writing’. He had achieved his first success. This explains the reason why the creation of what would be
Knots and Crosses
got mentioned in his diary on 19 March, days after being conceived. The 19th was the biggest day in his modest literary life:
he had had a novel accepted for publication by a small Edinburgh publisher, Polygon, and had gone along to the publishers to sign the contract! The novel was called
The Flood
and it was set in a decaying mining village – his own childhood village of Cardenden – ‘Carsden’ in the book. Rankin and his teenage friends had once nicknamed Cardenden Cardeadend and local people became upset with Rankin’s
depiction of their community in his novel, which they considered to be as insulting as the teenage nickname.
The novel had started as a short story called
The Falling Time
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but soon became longer, taking in a local childhood tale of a girl who fell into a canal against a backdrop of blue-collar Scotland. Still a world away from Rebus but based on the evidence of his earlier, albeit unreleased,
work,
The Flood
made him a firm Scottish writer, using locations from his home country throughout.
When
The Flood
was re-issued by Orion in 2005, it benefited from a thorough re-proofing from Jon Wood (Rankin’s editor at Orion), and allowed his legions of fans to read a book previously worth up to £1,000 in hardback on the collector’s market. There were 400 copies of the original hardback printed
simultaneously with 600 paperback copies. The book jacket – along with the editorial – was completed by students, making a modest first outing for Rankin but one that has endured and today ranks as one of his most interesting diversions from the Rebus series.
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Some people, myself among them, consider
The Flood
to be a female-interest book. If it is because of the female lead character or the
big emotions displayed throughout the story, is unclear, but that’s the nature of
The Flood
: it is difficult to define. Rankin calls it ‘a young man’s book’, meaning that only a young man could write it. He’s right in the respect that it’s a book based upon youthful memories – stories heard, locations from one’s childhood town – and that makes it both different and endearing.
The Flood
is not
a crime novel. It sits on that broad shelf of General Fiction that is never defined and encapsulates those almost genreless tomes that beg for mainstream attention. It is an underrated work written before genre became important to the bestselling-writer-to-be, so it is . completely uncommercial in that respect. In fact, for story alone, it is a book I rate more highly than Rebus tomes such as
Wolfman
and
Strip Jack
, so it is definitely among his best efforts in regard to his early work.
On 22 March 1985, still buzzing from the success of placing
The Flood
, Rankin decided to start work on his first Rebus novel. He was living in a bedsit in Marchmont. He had a gas fire and an electric typewriter. Two days later he had given his story a working title:
Knots and Crosses.
He stared out
of the window at a tenement opposite and decided that Rebus would live there.
The book opens with Rebus placing flowers on his father’s grave on the fifth anniversary of his death (28 April – Rankin’s own birthday!). He then battles through miserable weather to visit his brother who, although polite, really doesn’t want to see him. Rebus’s brother Michael has made a success of his life as a stage
magician – like their father had been – and Rebus feels a million miles away from the bullshit and pretence of his brother’s life. He returns to his job where he investigates a child-killer. Rebus starts receiving small knots and crosses in the post from the killer. It becomes clear that the killer is someone he knows and the story builds from there.
The impression Rankin wanted to give the reader
at the time – now lost on any reader of the Rebus series – is that Rebus himself is a suspect in the story. He makes the character’s life complicated; something he may have grown to regret as the series progressed.
Rebus wasn’t behind the murder case but he did find out who was: someone who wanted revenge for a past misdemeanour. The killer had already killed the son of Rebus’s superior, something
he wouldn’t be forgiven for, and now the killer is after Rebus’s young daughter, Samantha.
Rankin had originally intended to kill off Rebus at the end of the book. It’s an unthinkable thing to contemplate today; but all this goes to prove how disposable the character was to his creator in the beginning.
That said, Rankin found that Rebus leapt off the page while writing
Knots and Crosses
and
the first draft of the book was reputedly completed in six weeks. Barrie & Jenkins took the novel after a second draft (completed in October 1985) and a slight cut was suggested by his new-found agent; something that was well advised, as I will discuss presently.
So Rankin’s first Rebus novel was complete. Rankin had acquired a good agent and a reasonably large publisher. His career as an author
was building well.
‘
Knots and Crosses
is a story of savagery and guile played out in one of the most genteel cities in the world. But it is more; an intellectual puzzle, a game, a captivating and accomplished thriller with a chilling climax.’
Segment of the original jacket blurb to the first
edition of
Knots and Crosses
Most early novels are written during a person’s free time, when the
time available for research is minimal. For
Knots and Crosses
there were two potential roads for research, both of which were important in regard to the ongoing series. The first was police procedure. Rankin wrote to the Chief Constable and was advised to talk to Leith police station. He spoke to two detectives who were apparently very wary of Rankin and his odd questions about child abduction
cases – a real-life one being investigated at the time! ‘In my duffel coat and Doc Marten boots, a Dr Who scarf wrapped around me, I probably wasn’t their idea of a novelist,’ he said in the Introduction to the Collector’s Edition of
Knots and Crosses
. In fact this was an understatement, as Rankin was cross-examined by the policemen and the experience kept him away from police stations for at
least the next year!
The second area of research was the SAS and, this is a very interesting part of the book to analyse, because this is the area where Rankin’s agent suggested some cuts.
To begin with, Rankin credits Tony Geraghty’s ‘excellent book’
Who Dares Wins
(Fontana, 1983) for his research regarding the Special Air Service (SAS). As during his childhood, Rankin went to a book of a famous
movie, although this time he was old enough to go and see it!
The first thing that strikes me about the cut 20-odd pages of
Knots and Crosses
(Rebus’s time in the SAS) is that it’s a watered down version of serious special ops training. There is a distinct lack of colourful language, a minimum of ‘F’ words and no ‘C’ words, just the odd ‘bastard’ and ‘fuck’, so the end result is both palatable
and acceptable to the general reader.
In any area of the British Army (and its offshoots) there are always the amusing nicknames, such as ‘Wiggy’ for a bald man, ‘Scotty’ for a Scot’ and so on. Not only is there a lack of this basic camaraderie in
Knot and Crosses
, there is also the distinct lack of ‘creative’ swear words, which make female Company Clerks gasp and ORs snigger. So we are moving
away from reality towards the palatable/unbelievable in this cut text? Yes, unfortunately we are.
I also suggest that Rankin used a little bit more than Geraghty’s book in research, but the second-hand nature of the SAS sequence shows through. This harks back to the lack of time for quality research. With best intentions at heart, most young writers are not convinced that their early efforts
at a novel are going to be published and, as a consequence, the resulting research is either half-hearted or, at best, compromised by the learning curve of the author coming to terms with his trade and the time available to undertake quality research.
Like the early work of James Herbert, Rankin’s early Rebus novels are a little cut-and-thrust. They’re direct, visual and slightly brutal (see
Wolfman
for a good example) but when Rankin had the opportunity to be over-the-top (with his SAS sequence), he failed to do so.
My personal grumblings concerning the reality of the sequence were probably not what concerned his agent at the time! More likely, the cut was proposed because it interfered with the novel’s pace. The cut piece provides – for me – an unconvincing interlude that may have
entertained the author at the time – and the die-hard Rebus fan in the 20th Anniversary edition – but did nothing for the original novel and the way the story has been enjoyed ever since.
Now I’ve completely slated the cut sequence, what does it tell us about Rebus?
A gripe I’ve always had with Rebus is the visual representation of him. I’ve always found it hard to visualise him in the Police
Force but strangely, not so difficult as a member of the SAS. He comes across as a hard-nosed Fifer –164lbs with no ‘excess luggage’ – a young man smart enough to understand when his mettle is being tested by his superiors/trainers, and somebody who would be cheeky enough to ask his ‘boss’ if he would carry his pack and jacket, as it was too heavy! This pushing of the system is perfect grounding
for the police-inspector-to-be. His wry sense of humour, his been-there-seen-it-done-it attitude, gives him the perfect grounding for squaring up against gangster ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty in future novels.
Does all this imply that Rankin has let the visual image of Rebus slip over the years? No. Simply, he’s refused to repeat himself and has let the character build and become more complex with each
book through his cases, situations and general behaviour. Rankin has let Rebus speak and act for himself and as a consequence, avid readers of the series have drawn a very intricate and personal picture of the man over the years through his interactions – the ups and downs of his many relationships.
This approach has two consequences: 1) not everyone would be totally happy with
any
interpretation
of Rebus on screen and 2) readers who take the books out of sequence find it difficult to draw their own visual interpretation of the character.
Rebus is not as clearly defined as Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, but the stories are as intricate and the locations are definitely more vivid. Like fellow Scot Iain Banks, Rankin shows a clear interest in plot and location and an almost disregard to characters
in comparison. In the thriller genre Frederick Forsyth is guilty of a similar thing and both Banks and Forsyth have not fiercely denied such criticism in the past.
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Indeed, Rankin says that he finds out new and interesting things about Edinburgh with each Rebus novel, so at the very least, the location is as important to him as the main characters – or one is defined by the other. And here lies
a very interesting point: is a person defined by the area where they live? To a degree they have to be, but there are exceptions; such as Rankin and Cardenden, and Rebus and Cardenden. They are two very different adults (sic).
Returning to the cut sequence about Rebus in the SAS, I agree with the agent’s call to cut it, albeit for different reasons. The cut sequence was a great exercise in Rankin
getting to know Rebus, but little more.
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Or maybe one thing more: it vindicates Rankin’s claim that Rebus jumped off the page while writing the novel, so much so that his self-indulgence was edited out of the final version.