On Wikipedia it says Rankin’s inspiration for this book partially came from the murder of Daniel Morgan who “was a private detective in South London in the late 1980s. He died of axe wounds to his head in a pub car park in Sydenham, South London in 1987. He was investigating alleged police corruption at the time.”
Here, the remains of missing private detective Stuart Bloom are found in the trunk of a red Volkswagen Polo. It was hidden in Poretoun Woods, close to Edinburgh, Scotland. Bloom’s ankles were handcuffed, ruling out suicide.
Soil analysis later showed the car had been moved. More importantly, it had been driven into Poretoun Woods.
When Bloom went missing he was hired by film producer Jackie Ness. Bloom and his partner had even been extras in some of Ness’ movies. Ness had his eyes on real estate to expand his movie business however, someone else wanted the land to build a golf course. That man was Sir Adrian Brand.
Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is being harassed. She keeps getting calls on her mobile. She finds out that the calls come from a public phone booth. This harassment is only part of Clarke’s problems. Internal Affairs is checking up on her for her relationship with the press.
John Rebus, retired Detective Inspector in the Lothian and Borders Police force in Edinburgh, Scotland, is more than willing to help re-investigate the Bloom case. He was part of the original investigative team. Being friends with Clarke means that he also wants to find out why she is being harassed and by whom. It leads him to an old murder case, the Ellis Meikle case.
Ellis Meikle was sentenced to life for the murder of his girlfriend Kristen Halliday. At the time of the murder, Ellis was just seventeen years old. Now I know this is a sidestep but it is one that is not sufficiently explained in the book. Having studied law, it bothers me.
I know the UK does have life sentences for juveniles (detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure or DHMP) making life mandatory for a specified offence AND if the Crown Court determined there is a significant risk of serious harm to members of the public e.g., recidivism of specified offences. In the book, it is not clear to me what arguments the Court considered to determine that Ellis Meikle would be a risk to the public, but I digress.
It turns out that the one harassing Clarke is none other than Dallas Meikle, Ellis’ uncle. Dallas is the brother of Charles Meikle, the father of both Ellis and his sister Billie. Rebus ends up visiting Ellis in prison where the young man’s use of words makes him wonder about the case. Yes, his fingerprints were on the knife that killed Kristen and yes, there was a text message on Kristen’s phone to meet him. Rebus starts to consider an alternative explanation for these facts.
Rankin weaves these cases and several investigative lines together to show the reader the world of low budget movies, the corruption of some police officers, the problematic relationships between law enforcement and the media, the damage that can be done to a case by revealing details, the attitude towards people who are gay, how difficult it is to dig into an old case, etc. The pace of the investigation picks up after we have the soil analysis from the tires and the car’s chassis.
The plot seems complex as it is multi-layered and spread out over decades with changed alliances. The parts with Bloom’s partner are heartbreaking. Grief struck after Bloom vanished and finding his remains reopened all the wounds. The same counts of course for Bloom’s family but they support each other and not Stuart’s gay partner.
In a House of Lies is book number 22 in the Inspector Rebus series. It is my first Rebus and Rankin book. I read online that all Rebus books could be read separately however, I do think I missed subtle dynamics and professional slights between the characters.
What I immediately loved was that this book paid attention to the role of the media, the use of social media, bias and misinformation that is easy to spread, and of course, harassment and bullying.
As a reader you must stay alert. I often had to flip back a few pages to retrace names and what role they played. There is no glossary of terminology or officer ranking for non-British readers. At times, it did feel as if too many characters were walking in and out of the story.
Despite minor struggles, this is a terrific story and I will be checking out more books by Ian Rankin.
My other book reviews are here.