The thrill is gone

>> With The Falls, Ian Rankin's bad detective loses his edge

by JULIET WATERS

Before the first page of his latest Inspector Rebus mystery, The Falls, Ian Rankin quotes writer Philip Kerr: "Not my accent--I didn't lose that so much as wipe it off my shoe, as soon as I started to live in England--but rather my own temperament, the prototypically Scottish part of my character that was chippy, aggressive, mean and morbid and, despite my best endeavours, persistently deist. I was, and always would be, a lousy escapee from the unnatural history museum."

It's hard to pin down any character in The Falls who might fit that description. No one moves to England. There are a few wealthy Edinburgh aristocrats who adopt the generic character traits of most gentry and spend most of their time in London. But none of them has a very significant role in the mystery. The only character who it might actually apply to, in a sense, is Rebus. More specifically, TV Rebus, now that the Rebus books have been made into a BBC series.

In many ways the Raymond Chandler of Scotland, Rankin is one of the most prolific and respected mystery writers being published out of the U.K. The Falls is Rankin's 15th Rebus mystery. A notable achievement, not just because of his age (Rankin is barely 40), or because he's also written six other novels (three under the pseudonym Jack Harvey), but because of the consistent quality of his work. Set in Darkness, Rankin's 14th Rebus, was as strong as his first, Knots & Crosses.

But in The Falls, Rankin seems to have toned-down the tortured, hard-drinking, rebellious, slutty detective that his readers have come to love. Annie Dillard once claimed that books that have been written with screenplays in mind have a certain feel that ruins them. As mysteries go, The Falls is still a decent read. But by Rebus standards it seems to have lost some of its richness and complexity. Suddenly there seems only enough plot and enough characters to fill a two-hour episode.

Gone are the denizens of Edinburgh's criminal underground who usually provide the texture that grounds a typically slippery Rankin plot. They've been replaced by the upper-crust banking family of murder victim Philippa "Flip" Balfour. In Set in Darkness, Rebus fell into bed with a bitchy ex-icon model, a famous groupie from the '70s. In The Falls he's dating a museum curator. The plot, involving Flip's participation in an internet role-playing game is interesting, but not compelling.

As usual, the Edinburgh police force provides most of the characters. And Rebus's version of Scully, DI Siobhan Clark, returns to alienate the affections of some new sleazy, ambitious partner, who is never half the man Rebus is. But there's a new character: Chief DI Gill Templer, an ex-flame who is now Rebus' boss. No Helen Mirren, Templer's an ambitious player who's a little too worried about Rebus's health.

Whether or not David Costello, Flip's boyfriend, is the murderer, we know we hate him. Mostly because he's a wimpy drinker: "The bag was lying on the floor, the half-bottle of Bell's sitting not far from it, top missing but only a couple of decent measures down. Not a drinker then, Rebus surmised. It was a non-drinker's idea of how you handled a crisis--you drank whisky, but had to buy some first, and no point lashing out on a whole bottle. A couple of drinks would do you."

After a good start (Rebus gets shit-faced, goes to Flip Balfour's apartment to check a few hunches, is discovered doubled over on the floor by her CEO father), his fire seems to become damper and damper. Like the music he loves best, early '70s rock, success may have ruined him. Luckily, for anyone who hasn't yet experienced the pleasure of Rebus, there are always the 14 earlier books.

The Falls by Ian Rankin, McArthur & Co, pb, 406pp, $24.95