Watchman

This moody 1980s' thriller from the author of the bestselling procedurals about Scotland's Inspector Rebus is clearly influenced by John le Carré's Smiley novels about MI6 and double agents. And that's fine, for this is well written enough to hold our interest, and excellently read by John Lee. Lee offers fine shadings of a wide range of characters--our world-weary Scots hero, Miles Flint, a spy determined to unearth a mole in his organization; an IRA terrorist who is more frightened than frightful; a tired, old English journalist; and a panoply of British agents. Lee also maintains a tight pace through the novel's occasionally overlong scenes, ensuring that listeners stay glued to the book until the end. A.C.S. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

September 24, 2007
Fans of Rankin's Inspector Rebus series (The Naming of the Dead
, etc.) will welcome the U.S. publication of his second novel, a stand-alone spy thriller from 1988 that contains Rebus-like elements. Miles Flint has been a successful middle manager in the shadowy ranks of British intelligence until recent mistakes, including a botched surveillance of an Arab assassin, put his career and reputation in jeopardy. Suspecting that the killer evaded him because of a tip from one of his own, Miles launches his own mole hunt, casting himself in a role that's uncomfortably active for him—especially as his search leads back to his wife, Sheila. And Miles's doings seemingly strike a nerve within the organization, getting him dispatched on a perilous IRA bombing-related mission. Rankin creates plausible and fascinating characters in a manner that seems effortless (as in Miles's tic of comparing people to different kinds of beetles). While the elements of the denouement will strike some as gimmicky, it's clear that if Rankin had devoted his gifts to spy fiction rather than mysteries, he would still have been a hit.