28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
It is Just So Different, January 23, 2010
In the middle of reading Doors Open and feeling let down by Mr. Rankin's plot and characters I checked into Amazon to see what reviewers and readers were saying about the book. There was such a divergence with newspaper reviewers hailing it as light hearted and an "Oceans Eleven," and readers virtually slamming it. I went back and finished Doors Open.
I welcomed the New York Times book review this morning to see what Marilyn Stasio, the crime story reviewer would say. After reading her review I realized that what the news media reviewers are doing is giving Mr. Rankin the benefit of his past very good novels, while accepting that he is playing with a new genre.
Those of us who so enjoyed the Rebus series, find this novel so totally different that it is like wearing one's shoes on the wrong feet.
Open Door is the story of a robbery gone awry and with players who are mostly out of their element either because they are not practiced criminals or very expert about art. The Rebus series allowed Mr. Rankin to thoroughly focus on character and the unending battle of good and bad in the police procedural while dropping in the social and political changes in Scotland and Edinburgh. His writing is as good as ever with many clever descriptions and conversations. Unfortunately neither the plot nor the characters have the snap and crackle many of us have come to expect.
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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Door closed!, April 5, 2009
What a disappointment! This is a very half-hearted successor to the Rebus novels. The police are shadowy uninteresting characters, and the crimes, which begin with an elaborate and not-very-credible art theft, are perpetrated by a group of caricatures - rich collector, curator, drug-freak artist - none of whom seems to have any real rootedness in the complex social world that we have come to expect. The amateur criminals find themselves falling headlong into an abyss of professional crime, which again lacks most of the depth that Rankin has uncovered there before; for instance, there's a hired killer from Scandinavia who has about as much reality as a Batman villain. Ultimately, the police get everything sorted out, but it's more like the arrival of the cavalry in an old western than the gut-wrenching effort that Rebus used to go through. Even Edinburgh, which Rankin has contrived in the past to make interesting, has no real presence here at all. Door closed!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A CHALLENGE TO RANKIN READERS WHO GAVE BAD REVIEWS, June 14, 2011
I came to this page while reading DOORS OPEN trying to find out if one of the artists in the book is fictional or not. I actually had the audio version of the book and could only make out "Mon" (it turned out to be the fictional Monboddo).
I was surprised to see the slough of negative reviews, most from Rankin fans disappointed not in the quality of the writing or story, but because John Rebus is not in it. This isn't fair, either to the author or to readers seeking to know if this is a worthwhile use of their reading time or not.
As another fan and reader of all Rankin's Rebus novels, I had another reaction to DOORS OPEN: I was a little weary of Rebus' self-destructive ways and enjoyed the new characters. (To be scrupulously fair to low reviewers, I may have two legs up on them in that I have both an excellent audio version and an interest in art forgery.)
Taken on its own, without knowing Ian Rankin had written DOORS OPEN, I suspect many who slapped it with low reviews would have rated it higher. Aren't they just glad that Rankin is writing another series, not retiring?
I hope Mr. Rankin realizes that many of his readers enjoyed the book very much and are looking forward to further post-Rebus novels.
I will even venture so far as to say that many of you low-star reviewers of DOORS OPEN should edit those reviews to reflect the book's very own merits, not just to vote your disapproval of the author leaving John Rebus behind. Most of you wouldn't have to change the review itself, an odd state of affairs. You've had years enough to know the last Rebus has come and gone. Aren't you just glad Mr. Rankin is still writing? Do you really expect any good writer to conform to your expectations? Remember Conan Doyle, forced to resurrect Sherlock Holmes when he was heartily tired of the character. They resulted in more good Holmes stories, but at what cost to the author?
I say if you like Ian Rankin's work, you should give him a chance to develop in new directions, and trust him to make it good. Shame on you for ganging up on him in a public forum that has such a profound effect on public opinion.
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