If you’ve read my ‘Tartan Noir’ post, you’ll know about William MIlvanney and his books about the Glasgow detective, Jack Laidlaw, who was an inspiration for Ian Rankin’s creation, the Edinburgh detective, John Rebus. You may also recall that McIlvanney’s widow found an unfinished draft of a fourth Laidlaw book and asked Rankin if he would be willing to take on the task of finishing it. Fortunately, Rankin agreed and ‘The Dark Remains’ was published a month ago from writing this (August 2021). I’ve just finished reading it and I thought it might be interesting to write a review. Hopefully, it will encourage you to read it, if you haven’t done so or thought of doing so and I will be very interested to know what you think of it as I think it raises quite a few issues worth talking about.
First of all, though, a bit about the book itself. I knew I would enjoy it because I liked the previous Laidlaw books and I am a big fan of McIlvanney and of Rankin and Rebus. I wasn’t disappointed and I polished it off in a couple of days – couldn’t put it down! The book is a prequel and it introduces the reader to Laidlaw for the first time. Of course, I knew him already but it must be at least forty years since I read the first two so I was pretty surprised at how familiar the character was to me. Of course, for me that is a huge strength as it demonstrates to me how good the characterisation of this hard-bitten, but quite intellectual, Glasgow detective is! Despite the gap in time, I warmed to him again immediately and wanted to find out all about him again.
To be honest, I thought the plot was fine but, as can be the case in the genre, a little formulaic. The right-hand man of a Glasgow gangster has been murdered and suspicion immediately falls on his rivals who are more or less significant players in the Glasgow underworld. The case falls to a detective-sergeant, who is a pretty decent and smart individual and he is handed what appears as if it might be a poisoned chalice in Laidlaw as his new partner. Laidlaw is clearly seen as something of a rebel but the two of them hit it off in a way that doesn’t seem to be the case with Laidlaw and anyone else on the force and they become a reasonably good team.
That is about as much of the story which I want to give away at the moment other than to say that, within what is effectively a whodunnit, the outcome is a clever twist which was, as is so often the case, one which I didn’t see coming at all! It would be interesting to know if that was what McIlvanney had planned in his original draft or if it was down to Ian Rankin and William McIlvanney had an entirely different ending in mind!
So, a great book and well worth reading but quite an interesting project for Ian Rankin. I think he has done a great job with it and I wonder how easy it was or not. I wondered if I would be able to identify what was clearly William McIlvanney’s work and where the Rankin influence came to bear. Initially, I did feel the style was not obviously Ian Rankin and, although it’s a long time since I read the earlier Laidlaw books, I felt there was something reminiscent of them in the early chapters. However, very quickly, it just became a book about Laidlaw without any thought about differences in style and, at the very least, any transition from one author to the other was entirely seamless. In addition, although, as I said in a previous post that there are clear similarities between Laidlaw and Rebus, I saw no signs of an Edinburgh-based detective in this book!
So, no surprises here but, in my opinion, this is a very good piece of work indeed and it can’t have been easy to do. Perhaps a good story rather than a great one but a wonderful character in Jack Laidlaw, created by William McIlvanney and brought to life forty years on again by Ian Rankin. If you haven’t read it, please do, especially if you’re a fan of John Rebus, and, if you have read it or when you have read it, let me know what you thought of it. One final thought, I mentioned in an earlier post about Rebus that I wondered where Ian Rankin might go next with him. I think he said recently that he had wondered about looking at the detective’s earlier years. I’m sure that, if he did, he would do as good a job on Rebus as he has done on this prequel to the Laidlaw books!