Ian Rankin Returns to Standalone Crime With The Heights

Ian Rankin has published his first standalone thriller in almost two decades, The Heights (Orion, £25), and reviewers rate it well up to his usual high standard.

The novel centres on an 18-storey luxury tower facing London's Hyde Park, where DS Gillian Gish investigates the suspicious death of night-shift security guard Dwayne Hogarth. The residents — a young singer, a gangster's wife, a man who "made a mint in post-glasnost Russia" and the daughter of a very well-connected Zimbabwean — are either uncontactable or tight-lipped. The developer, despite his bravado, is in financial trouble. Everyone, it appears, has something to hide. Then a second corpse turns up.

Luxury tower blocks, those potent symbols of hyper-gentrification, the widening wealth gap and the displacement of existing communities, are a gift to novelists, the review notes. Rankin remains a superb storyteller. DS Gish, described as less complex but considerably more relatable than John Rebus, is judged worthy of her own series.

What does this change for crime readers?

For Rankin fans, it offers a rare detour from the Rebus franchise into a self-contained London mystery. For the genre, it confirms the luxury-development thriller as fertile ground for social critique wrapped in a police procedural.

A darker second act: The Mortons

The roundup also reviews The Mortons by Scott Westerfeld and Justine Larbalestier (Viking, £18.99), a tale with shades of both The Sopranos and Wednesday Addams. The Mortons are a powerful old American family whose trade is murder, blackmail and financial fraud.

As Jessica, the family's great hope, puts it: "Give your child a strong hand, a sharp knife, and a big family, then teach them loyalty without care."

The children receive pet rabbits on which to prove their lack of compassion. The family is as ruthless with its own as with everyone else — the graveyard is full of youngsters who failed to make the grade. Jessica, who achieved her first kill aged 20, looks set to inherit the murderous mantle. But a summer internship sets off a train of events that culminates in the discovery of a conscience.

The review's verdict is mixed. The Mortons is vivid and exciting, with a nice vein of mordant humour. Yet there is a lot of world-building to get through, some of it lacking in internal logic. The many characters are hard to keep track of, and the violence towards innocent people and animals may leave some readers feeling queasy.

The verdict: Rankin delivers the safer, sharper pleasure; Westerfeld and Larbalestier reward readers willing to stomach a bloodier, messier family affair.