The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories

The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Stories (2015) Ian Rankin

‘Dead and Buried’ © 2013
‘Playback,’ ‘The Dean Curse,’ ‘Being Frank,’ ‘Concrete Evidence,’ ‘Seeing Things,’ ‘A Good Hanging,’ ‘Tit for Tat,’ ‘Not Provan,’ ‘Sunday,’ ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ ‘The Gentleman’s Club,’ ‘Monstrous Trumpet’ from A Good Hanging (And Other Short Stories, Featuring Inspector Rebus) © 2002 by. Reprinted by permission of Minotaur Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press. All rights reserved.
‘My Shopping Day’ © 1997 (first published in Herbert in Motion and Other Stories in Great Britain in 1997 by Revolver)
‘Facing the Music’ © 2002 (first published in Beggar’s Banquet, 1992)
‘Trip Trap’ © 1992 (first published in 1st Culprit by Chatto & Windus, 1992)
‘Talk Show’ © 1991 (first published in Winter’s Crimes 23 by Macmillan, 1991)
‘Castle Dangerous’ © 1993 (first published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, October 1993)
‘In the Frame’ © 1992 (first published in Winter’s Crimes 24 by Macmillan, 1992)
‘Window of Opportunity’ © 1995 (first published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, December 1995)
‘No Sanity Clause’ © 2000 (first published in the Daily Telegraph, December 2000)
‘Death Is Not the End’ © 1998
‘Tell Me Who to Kill’ © 2003 (first published in Mysterious Pleasures, Little, Brown & Company)
‘Saint Nicked’ © 2002 (first published in the Radio Times, 2002)
‘Atonement’ © 2005
‘Not Just Another Saturday’ © 2005
‘Penalty Claus’ © 2010 (first published in the Mail on Sunday, 2010)
‘The Passenger’ © 2014
‘A Three-Pint Problem’ © 2014
‘The Very Last Drop’ © 2010 (written to help the work of Royal Blind)
‘Cinders’ © 2014 (first published in the Mail on Sunday)

I love short stories.

I keep meaning to reread the Rebus series, but the first two books are a little darker than I want to reread, but for some stupid reason I can’t just pick up book three and start my reread there.

One of the things I love about Rebus is that he is complicated.

He’s also an asshole–just so you know.

These stories are presented in chronological order starting at the beginning of his career and closing just after his retirement.

All of them are glimpses into who Rebus was and who he became.

(B)eing a cop isn’t just about getting to the truth– it’s knowing what to do with it when you arrive. Making judgement calls, some of them at a moment’s notice.’

“Dead and Buried”

Rebus nodded and turned to MacManus, whose face had a sickly grey tinge to it.

‘Your first time?’ Rebus asked. The constable nodded slowly. ‘Never mind,’ Rebus continued. ‘You never get used to it anyway.

“Playback”

Rebus hated the Army– with good reason. He had seen the soldier’s lot from the inside and it had left him with a resentment so huge that to call it a ‘chip on the shoulder’ was to do it an injustice.

“The Dean Curse”

Most often, a person– a person in authority– would read that name from the piece of paper they were holding and then look up at Frank, not quite in disbelief, but certainly wondering how he’d come so low.

He couldn’t tell them that he was climbing higher all the time. That he preferred to live out of doors. That his face was weather-beaten, not dirty. That a plastic bag was a convenient place to keep his possessions.

“Being Frank”

A faith should be just that, Rebus reasoned. And if you held belief, what need had you of miracles.

“Seeing Things”

That was from Exodus. A dangerous book, the Bible. It could be made to say anything, its meaning in the mind of the beholder.

“Auld Lang Syne”

The elderly woman stood up. ‘Sir, are you from Scotland Yard?’

Rebus shook his head. ‘Scotland Yard’s in London.’

She was still standing. ‘Now why is that?’ she asked. Rebus had no answer to this.

“Castle Dangerous”

Rebus realised that Brian Mee had married Janis Playfair, the only girl in his long and trouble-strewn life who’d ever managed to knock him unconscious.

“Death Is Not the End”

‘Doesn’t take that long to throttle someone.’

‘Well,’ Clarke replied, as though she’d given it some thought, ‘first you’ve got to get good and angry.’

“The Passenger”

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Rating: 9/10

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