I don't suppose it was ever really in doubt, but having read Doors Open, I am happy to confirm that Ian Rankin does not need John Rebus to write a great book.
Leaving his retired, irascible detective in his wake, Rankin has added to his canon with a refreshing twist on the great heist story, telling the tale of three of the unlikeliest art thieves you can imagine: a software millionaire, a retiring art professor and a banker. (OK, so perhaps the banker is not quite so unlikely any more, there must be a growing number of them contemplating career change right noww...)
One is in becuase he is bored, one because he resents the fact that so much great art work is out of the public view in warehouses and the third because he wants something on his wall that even his bosses at the bank can't have.
Throw into this mix a stoned forger, a Norwegian Hell's Angel, a struggling gangster and an ambitious, pushy, un-Rebuslike, and unlikeable, copper and you have the ingredients for a tasty Scottish casserole.
It is written, as you would expect, quite beautifully although with a very different tone to Rebus: it is more light-hearted, less introspective and, well, just more fun really.
And although Rankin does not stray far from his well-beaten track, this is a crime novel set in Edinburgh, it feels very different.
Personally I look forward to seeing another book from Rankin set in the Rebus hinterland, perhaps focused on the career of the now unshackled Siobhan. But I think the decision not to jump into that immediately - if Rankin ever has plans to return to the world of Rebus - was the right one.
Doors Open is an entertaining read, and will be enjoyed both by fans of Rebus and those who have never come across him.