DOORS OPEN is something altogether different from Ian Rankin, the celebrated Scottish crime fiction author. Different than the dark, probing obsessions of his renowned — and recently retired — John Rebus series. Different too from the far-flung espionage of the early novels he wrote under his pen name, John Harvey. It’s the story of a heist where some successful, everyday citizens dip their inexperienced fingers in crime and live through the highs and lows that happen as a result.
Mike Mackenzie is a wealthy bachelor who made his fortune early in life as a software mogul. Now he’s retired, and dreadfully bored. His friend Allan Cruickshank is also bored, both with his banking career and his long, drawn-out divorce. What they share along with their boredom is a love of fine art, and one afternoon, they meet at an auction in their Edinburgh hometown and connect with their mutual friend, art professor Robert Gissing.
Gissing shares his personal frustration that so many pieces of fine art stay hidden from the public in the corporate offices or private apartments of corporate executives. What’s worse, in his opinion, are the hundreds of works that are stored in museum warehouses, due to lack of sufficient exhibition space. He suggests his personal plan to lift — or, rather, “liberate” — several such paintings from the Edinburgh National Gallery.
Who would ever know they were missing? Especially if they were replaced with skillfully painted copies. And Gissing knows just the forger for the task. Before long, the three friends decide to take the professor’s plan to heart, so they enlist the forger and decide to pull off the heist during “Doors Open Day,” a sort of citywide, open-house event.
As Mike and Allan plan the details, it soon becomes apparent that they need additional help to pull it off. A chance encounter with Charles “Chib” Calloway, a local crime boss, provides that help. He is a former schoolmate of Mike’s, and has recently learned the surprising value of those paintings he so long ignored. Chib agrees to lend a couple of his gunmen to give needed muscle to the plan.
Doors Open Day finally rolls around, and the heist is pulled off without a hitch. But soon, the entire situation starts to unravel, thanks to the restless questioning of a police detective and an increasing series of second-guessing, double-crosses and some good-old-fashioned greed.
The overall tone here is noticeably lighter than most of Rankin’s previous works, and at times feels almost like an homage to the late Donald E. Westlake — a master of such plots. This is especially true when Rankin introduces such characters as a Scandinavian Hells Angel member named Hate, who is sent to collect an unpaid debt from Chib. Or in the sections involving the forger, a slightly anarchistic art student inspired as much by his love of pot and caffeine as his love of art, and his long-suffering but devoted girlfriend.
But whereas Westlake would keep humor consistent throughout such a story, making it more of what we would lovingly call “a caper,” Rankin presents the tale with a subtle undercurrent of paranoia and the threat of violence. This may be new territory for him, but he quickly gets comfortable with it, and readers will find themselves as tangled up with the characters and events as readily as with any of his previous novels.
Think of DOORS OPEN as the Rankin equivalent of a lighter-proof whiskey — an analogy that Rankin himself might appreciate: It’s a bit sweeter on the tongue, and may take a few more swigs and a little more time to get that buzz you were expecting. But you’ll get there. And then you’ll find yourself smiling with a nice, warm glow, and hoping for a few more shots before the evening is through. —Alan Cranis
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• BLOOD HUNT by Ian Rankin
• EXIT MUSIC by Ian Rankin
• THE NAMING OF THE DEAD by Ian Rankin
Related posts:
- Do Not Open
- Don’t Open This Book!
- Bunny Tales: Behind Closed Doors at the Playboy Mansion
- Blood Hunt
- The Gilded Seal
