Doors Open – Book #28

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Title Doors Open
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Author Ian Rankin
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Genre Mystery
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Pages 364
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Publisher Little Brown & Company
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Copyright 2010
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Synopsis (from web-site)
Three friends descend upon an art auction in search of some excitement. Mike Mackenzie- retired software mogul, bachelor and fine art enthusiast- wants something that money can't buy. Fellow art-lover Allan Cruickshank is bored with his banking career and burdened by a painful divorce. And Robert Gissing, an art professor, is frustrated that so many paintings stay hidden in corporate boardrooms, safes and private apartments. After the auction- and a chance encounter with crime boss Chib Calloway- Robert and Allan suggest the "liberation" of several paintings from the National Gallery, hoping Mike will dissuade them. Instead, he hopes they are serious. As enterprising girlfriends, clever detectives, seductive auctioneers and a Hell's Angel named Hate enter the picture, Ian Rankin creates a highly-charged thriller, a faced-past story of second guesses and double crosses that keep changing the picture, right until the harrowing finish.

Why I read It
Ian Rankin is one of my top five favorite authors (Rankin, Henning Mankell, Marian Keyes, Haruki Murakami, Stephanie Meyer*). So I read everything he writes as soon as possible.

What I Thought About It
Rankin recently ended his longstanding series featuring Inspector Rebus, and as I here has started another series with another Scottish detective. This book is the sorbet between those two courses. The emotional depth he achieved with the Rebus series was missing, but I don’t feel it is really fair to judge it by that standard. So it was a light, fun book that reminded me of a cross between Ocean’s 11 and the Usual Suspects.

Mormon Mentions
None

Author Biography

Ian Rankin lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons.

*Just checking to see if anyone is actually reading this. I enjoyed the Twilight series (though not as much as a lot of you), but she is not in my top 5. My fifth choice is a little bit more fluid and varies depending who has a new book out. But it would include the likes of Laura Lippman, Tess Gerritsen, Christopher Moore, Robert Crais, Denis Lehane, Stuart MacBride, John Burdett, etc..