"EXIT MUSIC," by Ian Rankin. Little, Brown; 432 pages; $24.99
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Ian Rankin structures his new novel through the last 10 days of Inspector John Rebus' professional life. The only people that are truly sorry to see him go are other cops. As for his superiors in the Edinburgh police force, they share with the criminal class a restrained sense of joy and can barely restrain themselves from putting up bunting in the police station. Rebus, you see, has at least as many problems with the overworld as he does with the underworld.
Rebus is dreading retirement, but he's 60, the mandatory age. He's brusque at the best of times, grumpy the rest of the time and doesn't really like anybody. The ex-wife is in Italy, the daughter is in England. He has no interest in sports, no hobbies or pastimes other than his job. He drinks rather more than he should, and his doctor is not optimistic: "You've had a lucky run, John, but luck always runs out."
As far as Rebus is concerned, the times are changing, and not in a good way. Rebus is grieved to read Jack Palance's obituary, only to be doubly grieved when none of the other cops know who he is.
"Here's to the hard men," he says by way of a toast to the departed, not to mention himself.
The crime Rebus draws for his last tour of duty is fairly straightforward ... or is it? A dissident Russian poet is brutally beaten before he is brutally killed. Since Edinburgh is crawling with Russian oligarchs circling to get their hands on North Sea oil, and since at least one of the oligarchs, named Andropov, grew up with the poet, named Todorov, it all strikes Rebus as a mighty coincidence.
Add in Rebus' longtime nemesis Morris Gerald "Big Ger" Cafferty, a charismatic criminal who runs Edinburgh crime and who also is very cozy with the Russians, and Rebus has his hands full.
One of the newbies on the force, whose grandfather was put away by Rebus, thinks Rebus is seeing connections where none exist.
"Everything's connected," Rebus snaps.
On the other hand, why kill a poet? And why beat him to death, when the Russians typically poison people they want dead?
Siobhan Clarke, Rebus' partner, is ambivalent about his retirement. She knows that Rebus will expect her to bring down Cafferty and succeed where he failed, but it all feels like unwanted baggage. "She had a pair of ugly pewter candlesticks at home, gifted to her in an aunt's will. Couldn't bring herself to throw them out, so they lay tucked away at the back of a drawer - also, she felt, the best place for Rebus' old case notes."
You'll be happy to know that despite his dicey heart, Rebus survives at the end of "Exit Music," albeit with a very uncertain future. But then, almost everything about Rebus is up in the air in what seems to be Rankin's farewell to his beloved character.
"Exit Music" is impeccably structured, and Rankin pays as much attention to his characters as he does his mystery - unusual for procedurals, and welcome. He only tips his hand once, when he introduces a sound engineer who compulsively tapes everything and everybody around him. He gives the character the name "Charles Riordan," but he might as well be called "Dead Meat," and sure enough Riordan is promptly converted into charcoal when his house conveniently burns down with him in it.
But - and this may just be me - nearly 450 pages is too long for a procedural. If Rankin had sweated 50 or so pages out of "Exit Music," he would have had something approaching a classic. Nevertheless, Rankin creates a lot of sublimated emotion out of Rebus' impending retirement, and overall it's a very fine performance, up close and personal with "all those biblical deadly sins laid bare, with a few more besides." It ends with a stunning, emotionally chaotic scene of a desperate Rebus hanging on to the only thing he's got left. If it were a movie, it would be a blurred freeze-frame.
Scott Eyman writes for The Palm Beach Post. E-mail: seyman AT pbpost.com