✍ Scribed by Ian Rankin
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Beggar's Banquet is something of a departure for Ian Rankin and a
very welcome one. Over the years, Rankin has built up an imposing
portfolio of short stories. Appearing in crime magazines, written for
personal appearances, or as one-off radio specials, they all resound
with the singular energy and idiosyncratic characterisation of his best
full-length novels. A previous collection, A Good Hanging,
combined some first-rate tales with more workaday material, but this
time round there isn't a single weak link, and the range of stories here
is astonishing; this is a panoply of Rankin's approach to crime and
mystery writing, and is that rare thing in short story collections: a
book in which the tales can be read one after the other with
ever-increasing pleasure.
We are taken into territory that is horrific (The Hanged Man), grimly ironic (The Only True Comedian) and even sociological (Glimmer
is a hard-edged picture of how the optimism and hedonism of the 60's
was swiftly eroded). And who could resist lines such as the following
(in Unknown Pleasures):
He could feel the sweat,
even though it was more viscous than sweat⦠more like a sheen of
cooking oil. The tenement stairwell smelt of deep-fried tomcatâ¦
But perhaps you're the kind of reader who fights shy of short story
collections? Well, if you're any kind of a DI Rebus fan (and what crime
enthusiast isn't?), there are eight--count them--eight stories featuring
our favourite Scottish copper. And who could say no to a collection so
rich in Rebus? --Barry Forshaw
📜 SIMILAR VOLUMES
*Beggar's Banquet* is something of a departure for Ian Rankin and a very welcome one. Over the years, Rankin has built up an imposing portfolio of short stories. Appearing in crime magazines, written for personal appearances, or as one-off radio specials, they all resound with the singul
*Beggar's Banquet* is something of a departure for Ian Rankin and a very welcome one. Over the years, Rankin has built up an imposing portfolio of short stories. Appearing in crime magazines, written for personal appearances, or as one-off radio specials, they all resound with the singul
Over the years, Ian Rankin has amassed an incredible portfolio of short stories. Published in crime magazines, composed for events, broadcast on radio, they all share the best qualities of his phenomenally popular Rebus novels. Ten years ago, A GOOD HANGING - Ian's first short story collection - dem
Diez comensales de un banquete, los sirvientes, y algunos otros que pululan por historias próximas, o antecedentes. La obra empieza con un robo en casa de una pareja de ricos. Mientras duermen, unos ladrones entran en sus casa, les roban y se orinan en las paredes.
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