num_pages: 376
description: Beggars Banquet is something of a departure for Ian Rankin and a very welcome one. Over the years, Rankin has built up an imposing portfolio of short stories. Appearing in crime magazines, written for personal appearances, or as one-off radio specials, they all resound with the singular energy and idiosyncratic characterisation of his best full-length novels. A previous collection, A Good Hanging , combined some first-rate tales with more workaday material, but this time round there isn't a single weak link, and the range of stories here is astonishing; this is a panoply of Rankin's approach to crime and mystery writing, and is that rare thing in short story a book in which the tales can be read one after the other with ever-increasing pleasure. We are taken into territory that is horrific ( The Hanged Man ), grimly ironic ( The Only True Comedian ) and even sociological ( Glimmer is a hard-edged picture of how the optimism and hedonism of the 60's was swiftly eroded). And who could resist lines such as the following (in Unknown Pleasures ): He could feel the sweat, even though it was more viscous than sweat… more like a sheen of cooking oil. The tenement stairwell smelt of deep-fried tomcat… But perhaps you're the kind of reader who fights shy of short story collections? Well, if you're any kind of a DI Rebus fan (and what crime enthusiast isn't?), there are eight--count them--eight stories featuring our favourite Scottish copper. And who could say no to a collection so rich in Rebus? -- Barry Forshaw
language: English
title: Beggars Banquet
titlecomplete: Beggars Banquet (Inspector Rebus, #13.5)
characters: Inspector John Rebus
genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Mystery, Thriller, Noir, Scotland, Detective, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Audiobook
ratings_count: 2524
series: Inspector Rebus
publisher: Orion