The eyes of the world are on Scotland in THE NAMING OF THE DEAD (Little, Brown, $24.99), which opens shortly before the G-8 summit conference that will bring top international leaders to a secluded golf resort on the outskirts of the Perthshire town of Auchterarder in the early summer of 2005. But while that factual fidelity lends authenticity to his books, it also accounts for their unwieldy structure and overburdened narratives. Events that shape the course of history in Scotland are just as likely to determine the plots of his novels. Like George Pelecanos, the American crime novelist he most resembles, Rankin is a flinty realist with little use for the romantic heroics that allow series detectives to operate above the fray of real life lived in real time. Anyone who turns to genre fiction for escapist reading is well advised to stay clear of Ian Rankin’s hard-boiled procedurals featuring Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh police force.
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