Review: Open Doors by Ian Rankin

TP, $24.95, 0752890719

I feel I should start this review with a confession, I have never read any of the Inspector Rebus novels. I know that to some of our customers this will be shocking but somehow I never read them. It is not because I have anything against either police procedurals or Edinburgh because one of my favourite series is Quintin Jardine’s Bob Skinner series, a police procedural set in Edinburgh. Anyway back to the subject in hand Ian Rankin’s new novel Doors Open. Almost every customer who comes in the store asks “Is it any good?”  My answer is “yes” as long as it is understood that I am not comparing it with the Rebus series. The story revolves around Mike Mackenzie, a dot.com millionaire, who has taken up art collecting as something to do with his time and his money, both of which he has too much of. Through a series of coincidences, he becomes involved in a plot to liberate art from the National Gallery of Scotland. Things of course do not go smoothly but it all works out and he gets the girl in the end. Did I enjoy it, yes I did. It is well written and Edinburgh felt real. This book is in fact an old fashioned ‘caper’ novel. It will make a great movie with George Clooney as Mike Mackenzie.