WATCHMAN

Ian Rankin. WATCHMAN. Orion, 1988/2004.

A very early Rankin without Rebus. Miles Flint is a watchcman, a spy for MI5 whose main work is surveillance. He is pulled off a botched assignment, redirected to Belfast where he evades an ordered assassination, and returns to London then Edinburgh to root out the bad guys. Not as interesting a character as Rebus. Nor do I find spy capers very interesting. Without proper supervision, the worst of humanity seems to surface. An interesting picture of Great Britain during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.