Flood [Paperback]

Ian Rankin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2006

Mary Miller had always been an outcast. As a young girl she had fallen into the hot burn - a torrent of warm chemical run-off from the local coal mine. Fished out white-haired and half-dead, sympathy for her quickly faded when the young man who pushed her in died in a mining accident just two days later. From then on she was regarded with a mixture of suspicion and fascination by her God-fearing community. Now, years later she is hardly less alone. She is the mother of a bastard son, Sandy, and caught up in a faltering affair with a local teacher. Sandy, meanwhile, has fallen in love with a strange homeless girl. The search for happiness isn't easy. Both mother and son must face a dark secret from their past, in the growing knowledge that their small dramas are being played out against a much larger canvas, glimpsed only in symbols and flickering images - of decay and regrowth, of fire and water - of the flood. The Flood is both a coming-of-age novel and an amazing portrait of a time and place. Dark, atmospheric and powerful, it is a remarkable debut from a remarkable author.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'A must for lovers of Rankin' GOOD BOOK GUIDE 'Full of secrets and revelations, with an atmospheric sense of time and place, it has Rankin's signature darkness' CHOICE 'It wouldn't take a Rebus to sleuth out the telltale signs of a talent in the making' -- Chris Power THE TIMES --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Born in the Kingdom of Fife in 1960, Ian Rankin graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982, and then spent three years writing novels when he was supposed to be working towards a PhD in Scottish Literature. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987, and the Rebus books are now translated into twenty-two languages and are bestsellers on several continents. Ian Rankin has been elected a Hawthornden Fellow, and is also a past winner of the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers' Association Dagger Awards including the prestigious Diamond Dagger in 2005. In 2004, Ian won America's celebrated Edgar Award for 'Resurrection Men'. He has also been shortlisted for the Edgar and Anthony Awards in the USA, and won Denmark's Palle Rosenkrantz Prize, the French Grand Prix du Roman Noir and the Deutscher Krimipreis. Ian Rankin is also the recipient of honorary degrees from the universities of Abertay, St Andrews and Edinburgh. A contributor to BBC2's 'Newsnight Review', he also presented his own TV series, 'Ian Rankin's Evil Thoughts'. He recently received the OBE for services to literature, opting to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Orion Paperbacks; New edition edition (August 9, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752880942
• ISBN-13: 978-0752880945
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,751,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.