Scottish literature

Nothing too highbrow: I’ve just devoured an Ian Rankin thriller, Doors Open, about a rather clever Edinburgh art theft.  Excellent characterisation and a few nice twists in the plot.  Recommended.  I must admit to rather galloping through it, since I was keen to start on the next one.  My schoolmate Jackie introduced me a couple of years ago to her old boss Bill Graham’s debut thriller, Vermin, which I got through in one sitting.  The hero and first-person narrator is a retired crime reporter turned private investigator based in Dundee, and indeed living in a flat in Broughty Ferry.  Jackie alerted me the other day to his new thriller, Blood on the Law, which shows all the signs of being just as good.  The résumé of the first book in the early chapters of the second one made me frown a little, but I’m not sure how I’d achieve the result more subtly.  The Chandler-esque use of the first-person narrator can also be a shade irritating and self-conscious, but it certainly reinforces the characterisation. That said, the characterisation of the third parties is also very strong by other means, so maybe the narration would benefit from a touch more transparency.

I’m reading it with Google Earth open on the iPad beside me, and loving all the local references.  I suspect I may not sleep before finishing the book!  More thoughts later, maybe.

Meanwhile, I sit like a care home resident in the comfy armchair at the window, watching the driving rain and flying leaves.  I ought to be outside transferring the runner bean plants to the now charged-for garden refuse bin, which is due to be emptied on Monday.  (Last time it didn’t go until the Tuesday afternoon, which is part of the reason why our streets are decorated with miscellaneous garbage receptacles all the time.  I hate it.  My unassuming little street of terraced and small semi-detached houses in the neighbouring town just looks dreadful now.  I wouldn’t now be able to accommodate the four bins and a recycling box out of sight without quite a bit of rehashing of the back garden.)

I managed to get the grass cut a few days ago, wet though the ground is, and in the process scooped up a lot of the leaves.  Even better, with a strong wind from the south-west, most of next door’s oak leaves are landing in their garden for once.