Monday, December 05, 2011

The 10 best fictional sleuths

For The Observer, Euan Ferguson came up with a list of the ten best fictional sleuths.

One entry on the list:
John Rebus
Ian Rankin

The Americans have heroes or antiheroes. Here, we have something in between in both Rebus and [Colin Dexter's Endeavour] Morse, who share a human middle ground where they can’t quite decide whether they want to be hero or antihero. But both are sleuths – more so than Poirot and Marple, who always failed to resonate for me, mainly because those things didn’t even come close to happening. Rankin’s Edinburgh is as true as it gets. Jack Rebus sits in the Oxford Bar, trying to be Scottishly unbotherable and unbothered and suddenly gets the connection. Black and Blue is his finest.
Read about another character on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue