Author Ian Rankin said his first two Inspector Rebus novels were based somewhat on Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Readers, he said, didn’t notice the similarities in Knots and Crosses, released in 1987, so he dropped all subtleties and screamed out parallels in Hide and Seek, released in 1990.

Sections begin with Jekyll-and-Hyde quotations. Character names are borrowed. The plot focuses on someone or something named Hyde. And there’s an anti-drug campaign gearing up in the background. It’s a much darker story than the other two Rankin novels we’ve reviewed here, which may point in the direct of future books. The next one deals with a cannibal–maybe I won’t jump into that one just yet.

In Hide and Seek, the police are called to a dilapidated row house, one of many squats for junkies and other homeless. They find Ronnie dead of an apparent overdose, arranged on the living room floor with a couple candles and a pentagram drawn almost perfectly on a near wall. Could this be the victim of some black coven’s ritual or did his hard life simply catch up to him?

Forensics reveal the drug found by the body were not the same as what was found in the body. This man injected himself with rat poison, so it would be natural to conclude his dealer wanted him dead. Plus the last person likely to have seen Ronnie alive claims he knew someone wanted him dead.

As Rebus is pulled off of all other cases in order to give time to the chief’s new anti-drug campaign, he has the time to ask questions and make requests of DS Brian Holmes for some shoe-leather work.

In one sense there is no case here. Someone unreliable is claiming foul play, and it doesn’t make sense that Ronnie would inject himself with poison. But maybe that’s all that happened and the pentagram is art on the wall. But what does Rebus’s gut tell him? It tells him to keep asking questions.

I’ve enjoyed what Rankin’s writing so far and intend to read more. I think they will improve as they go. He winks at us with his new Detective Sargent Holmes, a young, well-grounded officer who isn’t sure Rebus is trustworthy yet, and Chief Superintendent “Farmer” Watson, who sees the good in everyone he meets and drinks orange juice at a bar.

Rebus spent a little time looking for a new church between this book and the last, possibly having trouble finding one sufficiently gospel-free. Repentance is no good. Cheery optimism isn’t either.

There’s an odd description of a minor character as the most Calvinist-looking man in the room. That’s a Scottish way of saying someone is severe-looking, I think. Perhaps Americans would use “puritan” the same way. There’s also a mild defense of homosexuality, but it seems realistic, not advocative.