miker wrote about Rankin:
"On-stage violence? Rankin avoids it. The word "unflinching"
is used fairly often in describing hardboiled. Rankin is a
flincher."
While Rankin may not include a lot of on-stage violence, I'm
not sure that's the same as flinching from it. Part of the
reason is Rankin's sub-genre of police procedural, which
means the characters deal with the aftermaths of violence,
only coming on the scene to investigating after the fact. And
Rankin certainly does not flinch from the causes or effects
of violence. Also, his sparing depiction of violence lends
far greater weight to violence when it does appear on-stage.
It was far from causal when a comrade of his died during a
raid in a semi-recent book (being a bit vague to avoid
spoiling). His unflinching portrayal of the sudden violence
made at least this reader flinch. And isn't that how violence
would happen to people in Rebus's world, suddenly and quickly
(as in not prolonged)? How often would homicide cops find
themselves in violent altercations? Wouldn't they be doing
something wrong if they did?
Mark
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