The Complaints

The Cop Who Polices Cops

Ian Rankin’s The Complaints, published in 2009, marked a significant departure for Scotland’s master of crime fiction: after seventeen novels featuring the maverick Edinburgh detective John Rebus, Rankin introduced a wholly new protagonist, Malcolm Fox, and with him a fresh angle on the dark, corrupt, atmospheric Edinburgh that is Rankin’s great subject. Fox works for the Complaints — the internal-affairs department that investigates other police officers, the cops the rest of the force fears and despises — and The Complaints uses this premise to explore the murky territory where the watchers become the watched, and where the institutions meant to police corruption are themselves riddled with it. The result is a gripping, intelligent, atmospheric crime novel that both satisfies Rankin’s established fans and establishes a compelling new series hero.

The novel opens with Malcolm Fox doing his unglamorous, unloved job: investigating a fellow officer suspected of corruption. Fox is a careful, methodical, somewhat solitary man — a recovering alcoholic, divorced, burdened with a difficult family situation involving his ailing father and his sister’s abusive relationship — and a marked contrast to the hard-drinking, rule-breaking Rebus. But when he is drawn into an investigation of a colleague, Detective Jamie Breck, on disturbing charges, and when a murder occurs close to Fox himself, the careful investigator finds the ground shifting beneath him. Soon Fox is entangled in a web of corruption, conspiracy, and murder that reaches into the police force and beyond, and finds himself transformed from hunter to hunted, framed and isolated, forced to uncover the truth to save himself. Rankin builds the plot with his characteristic skill, layering personal and professional crises into an intricate, suspenseful whole.

Atmosphere, Plotting, and a New Hero

The strengths of The Complaints are the strengths that have made Rankin one of the world’s best crime writers: a powerful sense of place, intricate plotting, and an interest in the moral murk of policing and power. Rankin’s Edinburgh — dark, divided, haunted by corruption beneath its respectable surface — is as vividly realized here as in the Rebus novels, and the city’s atmosphere saturates the book. The plot is complex and satisfying, weaving together corruption, conspiracy, and murder with the careful construction Rankin’s readers expect, and the slow tightening of the net around Fox generates real suspense. The novel also offers Rankin’s characteristic engagement with the institutions and ethics of policing, here sharpened by its focus on internal affairs and the question of who polices the police.

Malcolm Fox himself is the book’s most interesting innovation. Deliberately different from Rebus — quieter, more cerebral, more controlled, a man who works within the system rather than flouting it — Fox is a compelling protagonist in a different key, and his introduction allows Rankin to explore policing from a fresh angle. His personal struggles (his recovery, his fraught family, his isolation) give him depth and sympathy, and watching this careful, contained man navigate a situation designed to destroy him is genuinely engaging. For readers, Fox represents a welcome demonstration that Rankin’s gifts extend beyond his most famous creation, and that the dark world of his Edinburgh can be explored through more than one kind of detective.

The Shadow of Rebus

The honest challenge for The Complaints is the inevitable comparison with the Rebus novels, and specifically the contrast between Fox and Rebus. Rebus is one of the great characters in modern crime fiction — charismatic, volatile, darkly compelling — and Fox, by design, is none of these things; he is quieter, more restrained, less flamboyant, a man of caution rather than maverick energy. This is a deliberate and defensible choice, and Fox is interesting precisely because he is different, but many readers, especially devoted Rebus fans, find him less immediately charismatic and compelling than his predecessor, and the novel correspondingly less electric. Fox grows on the reader, but he lacks Rebus’s instant magnetism, and the book asks fans to adjust their expectations.

The novel is also a slow burn, building its complex plot and its protagonist gradually rather than gripping from the first page. Rankin takes his time establishing Fox, his world, and the intricate situation that will ensnare him, and the early sections develop deliberately before the suspense fully ignites. This measured pace suits the cerebral Fox and the careful unraveling of the plot, but readers wanting immediate propulsion may find the opening slow. These are matters of taste and expectation rather than real flaws — the patient reader is well rewarded — but they mean The Complaints is a quieter, more gradual pleasure than Rankin’s most explosive work.

A Strong New Direction

The Complaints is a gripping, atmospheric, intelligently plotted crime novel that successfully launches a compelling new Rankin protagonist and proves the depth of his gifts beyond Rebus. Malcolm Fox, quieter and more cerebral than his famous predecessor, anchors a dark tale of corruption and conspiracy in Rankin’s vividly realized Edinburgh, and the intricate plot and rich atmosphere deliver the pleasures his readers expect. Fox lacks Rebus’s instant charisma and the pace is a slow burn, but for fans of Tartan noir and intelligent British crime fiction, the book is a rewarding read and a strong new direction.

For readers of Rankin and atmospheric crime fiction, The Complaints is an absorbing and satisfying read — a fresh angle on a master’s dark Edinburgh.

Final Verdict

Our rating: 4.0/5 — A gripping, atmospheric crime novel introducing a compelling new Rankin hero. Malcolm Fox is a quieter, more cerebral protagonist than Rebus, and his debut delivers the dark Edinburgh atmosphere and intricate plotting fans expect. Fox lacks Rebus’s instant charisma and the pace is a slow burn, but it’s a strong new direction.

For more Rankin and Tartan noir, see Knots and Crosses, The Falls, and Black and Blue.