Talk of the Tube

While speeding about on the London Underground (more familiarly known as “The Tube”), I often see passengers reading. Those who are not engrossed in novels of one sort or another, frequently have their noses in the free newspaper Metro, which is handed out at Tube station entrances. But it seems the paper wants to expand its riders’ reading horizons. It has just published contributor Jonathan Gibbs’ list of his favorite crime novels of 2007.

Winning the top spot--no surprise here--is Ian Rankin’s Exit Music, which is apparently his final Inspector John Rebus novel. Of that work, Gibbs writes:

Ian Rankin’s bloody-minded DI is only ten days away from his carriage clock when a Russian dissident poet turns up dead in an Edinburgh side street. What with a final showdown with his long-time nemesis Big Ger Cafferty, this is a fitting send-off for Rebus, and quite right too. He’s the reason for the phenomenal success of this series, the kind of loveable rogue who’s not above picking up a few signed copies of a victim’s last book to punt on eBay. Pure class.

I like Rankin’s worldview, which comes across in his novels, and I have to agree with the author’s recent comments about how terrorism fears are being exploited by certain politicians “to keep the population under control.” The result could be the sort of society George Orwell warned us about.

So which other books win Metro’s mention? Well, there’s Mark Billingham’s Death Message, Val McDermid’s Beneath the Bleeding, and Nick Stone’s King of Swords. The lone American cited on the newspaper’s list is James Lee Burke, author of this year’s extraordinary The Tin Roof Blowdown.

You’ll find all of Metro’s picks here.