| Book Details Title: Westwind
Author: Ian Rankin
Number of pages:
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; Reprint edition (January 7, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN: 0316497924
Rating: 3,8  131 reviews |
Book Description Review “[A] techno-action-thriller with its ripped-from-today’s-headlines plot…uncanny.”―Richard Lipez, The Washington Post“Rankin fans . . . will welcome this reprinting of a state-of-the-art, high-tech international thriller from 1990. . . . A fast-paced blast from the past . . . and (who knows?) maybe the immediate future as well.”―Kirkus ReviewsPraise for In a House of Lies“There’s no one like Ian Rankin for bringing us right into the world of detectives.”―Tana French“Ian Rankin is a genius.”―Lee Child Read more About the Author Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author. Winner of an Edgar Award and the recipient of a Gold Dagger for fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons. Read more Customers Review: I’d read what I thought were all of Rankin’s books and then Amazon reissued this one which had been out of print for almost 30 years. I rarely fail to read something from an author I like so I read this one. Now I’m up to date. I’ll read his next work too, but this one was only fair.It was one of his first books and it reads that way. He got much better as he found his voice, his genre, and his characters. If you aren’t as compulsive as I am about reading an author’s complete works, you might want to skip this one.
I’ve read a lot of Ian Rankin’s books, some more than once. I was excited to be able to read some of his earliest work even prior to Knots & Crosses. Westwind is an interesting tale, and the references to the computer equipment of early days brought back many memories. (I wrote my first computer program in 1960, and later bought one of the first IBM PCs.)The characters are British, the acronyms sometimes need a bit of research (eg MoD is like US DoD), and conversations can take a little thinking to decipher. The settings are, of course, referenced by British locations.I could imagine a similar plot to be set in today’s world with modern computer technology and current political environment, and I bet Ian could do a great job of it.All in all, a good read, and I thank Ian for letting us see how he started.
After slugging through this mess, I came to the conclusion that this book wasn’t printed for a reason and resurrecting it now is not a good thing. I am a huge fan of the Rebus series and all the associated books. This has the feel of a bad screenplay that is pulled out and handed to a team of writers to salvage it. Some of the best detective fiction ever written came from Ian Rankin. This is just a case of a writer who hadn’t found his voice yet and the narrative doesn’t seem authentic. I would compare it to Michael Crichton’s early books that eventually became Jurasic Park and some of the best storytelling . Remember when Michael Jordan played for Charlotte(probably not) -its like that…
I have had the pleasure of reading this excellent author in the past, and was never disappointed. This novel is a serious keeper, too. Action, adventure, spys, and betrayal keep you glued to the page until the very end. Warning: Don’t start late at night!
Rankin should have left this book lost. Not anywhere near Rankin’s normal standard. Leave this book alone, as it will just disappoint you.
A believable story written as if it describes todays situation of a US withdrawal to its continent and manipulating the world from there. Leavers and remainers of another era. Keep the wars in someone else’s backyard.Characters well fleshed out as the story rushes to its inevitably violent ending. Much blood on the floor.If Rankin could write like this for a first novel (are we sure he hasn’t brought it up to date more recently) then its no wonder we have all been so engrossed with all the subsequent work.
This is a bad spy novel erroneously listed under Sci Fi. The author’s own original decision the book is not very good should not have been changed.
This is one of Rankin’s earliest works. It has no resemblance to his Rebus creations.Nevertheless, the book is a well crafted thriller that touches on issues that are still with us today…Daniel S |
