A Song for Dark Times by Ian Rankin

Little, Brown & Co., 336 pages, $27

Times have changed for John Rebus, recently retired inspector in the Edinburgh police. He and the police establishment have aged since his first appearance in “Knots and Crosses” in 1987. Police procedures are tamer and more by-the-book for one thing. Rebus has had to renounce the hands-on aspect of policing for the most part. Rebus also had to dodge the police corruption rife in the department. That didn’t mean, however, that he was squeaky clean. Some of his frenemies were decidedly criminal-minded.

Ian Rankin tried to give Rebus his walking papers in “In a House of Lies.” The retirement has stuck, more or less, in “A Song for the Dark Times.” Rebus’ COPD has meant he had to move from the walk-up apartment in which his daughter lived as a baby to a wee box of a ground level place not too far away. In case you are having anxiety issues over his prized albums, they have moved with him. Siobhan Clarke, his loyal ex-colleague and most-of-the-time friend, has taken time off from work and is helping him settle in. Until a case draws her back to work.

Rebus is not left to his own devices. He is called to northern Scotland by his worried daughter, Samantha. The father of Samantha’s daughter, Keith, is missing. Rebus’ Saab is on its last legs, but it manages to get him to the fictional town of Naver where his daughter lives. Where, oh, where is Keith? Samantha Rebus has a bit of temper to her and she alternately rails against her father and pleads with him to help. Of course Rebus will help, even after Samantha throws him out.

Keith had been involved in work to raise funds for purchase of a piece of nearby land which was a POW camp during the war. Keith had hopes of turning it into a tourist attraction as a means of preserving its history. Unlike the German POW camps, the British camps allowed some prisoners to labor in neighboring farms. The prisoners became known to the small town of Naver. After the war, some of the POWs returned to the U.K., married local women, anglicized their names, and lived their lives there ever after.

Siobhan, in the meantime, has become involved in a case of a rich man who was mugged, his friend who was murdered, and a rich woman who was a mutual friend. The deceased, Salman bin Mahmoud, could have been killed for any number of reasons. It is the murder team’s duty to find out which one was the right one. Joining them because of the international aspect — Sal was Saudi Arabian — is precise, joyless Malcolm Fox, protagonist and antagonist in several other Rankin books. He was recently promoted — a promotion Siobhan feels she should have gotten — and is a little skittish about how Siobhan will receive him. 

How does Rankin juggle the two cases of the missing boyfriend and the murdered Saudi national? He has them cross paths of course. But are they truly related or is it a coincidence the color of a red herring?

Both cases are worked extensively, and Rankin minds the myriad procedural steps. But he wastes no space in his books lollygagging, even though there are subplots, one involving a character who has appeared in several of the Rebus novels, local crime boss Ger Caffferty. He and Rebus had a hate-hate relationship, but they each found the other useful. Now he is Siobhan and Malcolm’s albatross.

Samantha also has appeared in several books. Rebus has not been a good father. It was easier to be a good detective and ignore the hard work of being a family man. So his relationship with his daughter is fraught. Can he redeem himself by finding Keith?

Of course I liked the book, but did I love it? I have invested years reading Rankin’s novels. But is this his finest work? I don’t really know. I don’t think so, but I have to admit I’ve been preoccupied the last couple of weeks, and my commitment to reading “A Song for the Dark Times” was a little lackadaisical. Let’s give “A Song” the benefit of the doubt. Here are the pluses. Rankin gave us two mysteries in the space of one. He has given Rebus a chance to balance his personal life. He has given Siobhan center stage. The answers to the mysteries could have been outlandish and exaggerated, but instead, Rankin has given us stories that draw back in the end to people and their frailties. And bonus point: Rankin retains his grandmaster’s rating in knowing how to write an ending.