The Heights by Ian Rankin (Orion, £25)
Luxury tower blocks, those potent symbols of hyper-gentrification, the increasing wealth gap and the displacement of existing communities, are a gift to novelists. Rankin’s first standalone thriller in almost two decades centres on The Heights, 18 storeys high and facing London’s Hyde Park, where DS Gillian Gish is investigating the suspicious death of night-shift security guard Dwayne Hogarth. The high-net-worth individuals who live there, including a young singer, a gangster’s wife, a man who “made a mint in post-glasnost Russia” and the daughter of a very well-connected Zimbabwean, are either uncontactable or tight-lipped, and it soon becomes clear that the developer, despite his bravado, is in financial trouble. Everyone, it appears, has something to hide – and then a second corpse is discovered. Rankin is a superb storyteller, and this is well up to his usual high standard, while DS Gish – less complex, but considerably more relatable than John Rebus – is worthy of her own series.
The Mortons by Scott Westerfeld & Justine Larbalestier (Viking, £18.99)
There are shades of both The Sopranos and Wednesday Addams in this tale of a powerful old American family whose trade is murder, blackmail and financial fraud. As the Mortons’ great hope, Jessica, puts it, “Give your child a strong hand, a sharp knife, and a big family, then teach them loyalty without care.” The children are given pet rabbits on which to prove their lack of compassion; the family are as ruthless with their own as with everyone else, their graveyard being full of youngsters who failed to make the grade. Jessica, who achieved her first kill aged 20, looks set to take on the murderous mantle, but a summer internship leads to a train of events that culminate in the discovery of a conscience. The Mortons is vivid and exciting, with a nice vein of mordant humour, but there’s a lot of world-building to get through, some of it lacking in internal logic; it’s hard to keep track of the many characters, and the violence towards innocent people and animals may leave some readers feeling queasy.
