Novel set in PHILADELPHIA
Police procedural set in LONDON
28th October 2026
The Heights by Ian Rankin, police procedural set in LONDON.
This is quite the move away from Rebus, with a new team policing the streets of posh London. The main setting is The Heights, which is an ultra luxe development on the edge of Hyde Park. I imagined The Heights being based on the Candy development at 1 Hyde Park, with everything the discerning global client might require, and the residents are a microcosm of London’s rich, famous and infamous.
The assembled residents are a cross-section of characters, all rather stereotyped as one might imagine, from the gangster’s moll to the Russian oligarch, the gorgeous girl and the pop star plus minder. All that is missing is a defunct, rogue Royal. Initially, they are hard to keep straight but because the revolving door of shortish chapters keeps coming around, they soon slot into place.
“A building that contains everything from dodgy Russians to home-grown gangsters…”
There is unbelievable artwork, costly cacti sculptures in the entrance foyer and security that turns out to be not quite state of the art, as the security guard – Dwayne Hogarth – is found dead in the reception. DS Gillian Gish is the police officer tasked as the lead investigator and teams up with older Jack Milton, who perhaps is a bit of a dinosaur in the force; and of course the reader is introduced to Gish’s home situation, where her mother needs dementia care, and requires emotional succour from her daughter.
Gish and her team start their investigations and make an effort to track down all the inhabitants for interview. Hostility and gossip are the order of the day, as this disparate group of London’s not-so-elite duck and dive, hide and hamper, and generally behave as one might expect. Then another body turns up…
This story – expanded from the previously published short story ‘The Rise’ – reads like a bit of a spoof of London’s multicultural so-called elite and I am sure the author had fun creating his characters. It is, in essence, a satirical look at wealthy London reprobates. I feel like he was smiling as he devised his London’s inimitable nonpareils. A fun and interesting read.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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