Ian Rankin’s The Naming of the Dead takes its title from a ceremony organized by protesters at the G8 summit of world leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July, 2005. The marchers climbed to the top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh and solemnly read the names of lives lost during the Iraq War as a dramatic feature of their antiwar demonstration.
Rankin’s sixteenth novel in the Detective Inspector John Rebus series is set during the week of the summit, and the ceremonial reading of names captures some of the political resonance of the hundreds of thousands of people who came to Edinburgh during that week. The title also signals other deaths, such as the victims whose killer Rebus is seeking, and others murdered during the course of the novel. The novel opens with Rebus at the funeral of his younger brother, Michael, who had apparently died of a massive stroke at age fifty-four. On a much broader level, the naming of the dead suggests remembering all losses and the lament voiced by Rebus that often one can do little except name them. Despite that, Rebus is determined to seek justice and prevent further murders by at least one killer, a serial killer in the case at hand.
Rebus has been with the Crime Investigation Department (CID) of the police in Edinburgh (the Lothian and Borders Police) for many years. He is nearing mandatory retirement, which he does not want to contemplate. Work is essentially his only interest, other than smoking and drinking too much and knowing a lot about popular music. Most of his superiors and some of his fellow officers, however, would be glad not to have him around. Except for his colleague and protégée Detective Sergeant Siobhan “Shiv” Clarke, he is basically a loner, antithetical to supervision, an unpredictable “rogue” cop who follows his own rules. That he is obsessively dedicated and solves his cases has made him a legend, but that too serves to distance him from most of the others. More than once it is suggested to him that he just coast through his last year on the force. Rebus is weary, depressed about his brother’s death, frustrated with his superior officers, and more introspective than ever, but he will not slack in his work. He does not even want to know how to.
Despite the many hundreds of extra police and law enforcement personnel from different agencies who have been assigned duties connected with the G8 summit meeting, his superior, Chief Constable James Corbyn, specifically excludes Rebus as a troublemaker and orders him to stay behind at the police station. Rebus gets involved anyway, when a call comes in that the body of a Labour member of Parliament, Ben Webster of Scotland, has been found on the ground below the walls of Edinburgh Castle during a high-level political meeting and party. The word is that Webster committed suicide. Rebus thinks it equally likely that he was pushed rather than jumped, especially when Rebus learns that Webster was campaigning against the arms trade.
Also going on at the same time is a case involving the murders of at least three men, all of whom were recently released from prison for rape or sexual-assault crimes. Siobhan Clarke has been assigned the case, with Rebus to work with her, even though he outranks her. The top police are not particularly interested, considering who the victims are. Now new evidence has been found at Coolie Well, where possible clothes of the victims have been left displayed in a wooded grove, as though the killer is leaving clues and daring the police to catch him or her. Chief Constable Corbyn orders Clarke and Rebus not to work on the case because he does not want the media to report such local embarrassments when the world is focusing on Edinburgh and the G8 summit. When he learns that they are still pursuing it, he suspends them from duty. They continue anyway.
Rebus learns that there is a Web site that provides alerts about sexual-assault criminals being released from prison. It seems designed to encourage the unidentified killer to find new victims. One of the people who apparently helps maintain the site is Ellen Wylie, who for personal reasons clearly has no sympathy for such criminals. Rebus has a heavy task trying to persuade Wylie to reveal what she knows and how much she is involved. The detective team also suspects a local crime figure, Morris Gerald “Big Ger” Cafferty, because one of the murder victims was formerly working as his muscle man. This brings Rebus into contact with Mairie Henderson, a well-known newspaper reporter who had ghostwritten a biography of Cafferty. Rebus wants information from her, and she wants information from him about the serial killer case, but he does not know if he can trust her regarding splashing the news in the headlines in the midst of the summit.
Others who seem to be involved include an Edinburgh councilman, Gareth Tench, who before he entered politics had been a popular evangelical preacher, well known in the city for his work with wayward boys. Keith Carberry, a young hooligan, seems to be close to Tench but also close to Cafferty. Rebus suspects that Tench may be trying to take over the territory that Cafferty claims as his own section of the city and that Tench’s motives may be as self-serving as those of the current crime boss. The situation becomes more critical when another murder occurs, though this one is not of a released sex offender. A further complication arises when David Steelforth, the Special Branch commander in charge of security, approaches Rebus about the case but is unwilling to explain his interest.
Throughout all this interaction with an intricate cast of well-drawn characters, another problem arises. Siobhan Clarke’s parents, both of whom have a long history of demonstrating and working for various causes—the peace movement, feeding the hungry, and others—have come to Edinburgh to join the multitude who are using the summit to gain publicity for their political action issues. Teddy and Eve Clarke had not approved of their only child becoming a police officer, a role they consider too conformist to the establishment. Siobhan has distanced herself from them but wants to see them. When she locates them in the Peace Camp, they are glad to see her, but they seem more engaged in what is taking place at the moment. They also seem more interested in a young woman who goes by the name of Santal, who has attached herself to them, than they are in their daughter.
As the daily television reports show, a ring of police surround the Peace Camp, primarily to keep the protesters from getting closer to the big eight world leaders. Some of those inside the camp become too noisy and confrontational, or the police become confrontational, and physical assaults occur. Word comes that Eve Clarke has been hit in the head, and she has to be taken to a hospital. Suddenly, nothing else matters to Siobhan except her mother’s welfare and finding out who hit her. It galls her to think that this was probably the work of a fellow police officer. In her attempt to locate video footage that might include the attack and to identify the attacker, she arranges a meeting with Big Ger Cafferty to get his help—the last thing she would want her superiors (or even Rebus) to know about.
As if there were not enough stress and anxiety going on that week in Scotland, on July 7, the second day of the summit meeting, multiple severe terrorist bombs wreak havoc, creating fear and causing considerable loss of life, in London.
The series of subplots that make up the overall plot are carefully interwoven and ultimately lead toward a common theme, that of the omnipresence of evil. Criminal acts, especially those based on greed and a fundamental lack of humanity toward others, abound at all levels. No one is safe. World leaders often add to the corruption and deceit rather than try to eliminate it, but the “common person” may be equally part of the problem rather than the solution. Police officers and others who work in law enforcement may also be criminals themselves; preachers may be as guilty as mobsters; those who are victimized may in turn victimize others.
Ian Rankin is often labeled the originator of “Tartan Noir,” detective fiction by authors from Scotland and set in Scotland. The Naming of the Dead is firmly set in Edinburgh and the immediate surrounding area, and the city itself becomes a rounded character with many facets. However, in terms of crime, the setting could be any large urban area. The novel, especially by invoking the actual event of the summit meeting of eight world leaders, clearly implies a global perspective. Rankin is considered the number-one best seller of crime fiction in the United Kingdom, and The Naming of the Dead was named the Worldbooks Crime Thriller of the Year, as was the novel that preceded it, Fleshmarket Close (2004). This testimony to his popularity is equaled by his high praise from critics. Rankin’s writing is considered superb,including his use of dialogue and his attention to characters and character development.
What Rankin accomplishes in The Naming of the Dead is to demonstrate again that some of the finest writing in contemporary literature is in the genre of detective fiction. His police procedural portrays a world that seems to capture well the spirit and realities of the times. The Naming of the Dead, by depicting the work and dedication during one week in the life of Rebus and Siobhan Clarke, also keeps alive the idea of justice and the need for compassion and individual responsibility.