IAN RANKIN: Doors Open, Orion, 2008, 316, pp. €12

Have you ever wanted something that was seemingly unattainable? Something that was owned by somebody else but they didn’t appreciate it in the same way that you would? Would you risk your future to get it?

Set in Scotland, Ian Rankin’s Doors Open takes the reader on a fast-paced and exciting trail of friendship, loyalty, betrayal, lust, power and escapism.

Friends, Mike Mackenzie, a selfmade millionaire, Allan Cruikshank, a banker, and Robert Gissing, head of the College of Art, are all art lovers who form the unlikeliest band of thieves when they realise that prized paintings – which they would dearly love to own – are being stored in a warehouse, closed to the public and unappreciated.

Together they plan an elaborate art heist to steal select paintings for their private collections during an ‘Open Doors’ day in the city of Edinburgh; the one day in the year when buildings that are usually closed to the public open their doors to visitors.

However, in order to pull off the perfectly executed plan, the men realise they will need extra help and thus enlist the help of a professional, the city’s infamous criminal, Chib Calloway.

Calloway went to the same school as Mackenzie but headed down a very different path to his classmate, ending up in the underworld of crooks and felons. A class apart to the gentlemen, Calloway is the only person who could provide a criminal mind, and oddly enough, he seems to have taken a liking to the world of art.

Then there’s Hugh Westwater, a gifted artist with a penchant for copying famous works of art down to the smallest detail, whose talents are the crux of the operation succeeding – a detail that doesn’t go unnoticed by Westie’s girlfriend Alice, who, in spectacular Lady Macbeth fashion, convinces her boyfriend to milk the situation for all that he (and she) can get.

Meanwhile, local Detective Inspector Ransome has made it his personal mission to catch Calloway in the act and lock him away for a very long time. However, who are the three gentlemen that he’s meeting up with? And since when does an uneducated thug attend art galleries and art auctions?

Ransome has many questions and intends to get to the bottom of it all and uncover the truth before rival Detective Inspector Hendricks does.

The presence of the beautiful and intelligent Laura Stanton provides another twist in the plot as a potential love interest for Mackenzie, but with a rather unhealthy obsession for Ransome, thus, unbeknown to them, further entwining the lives of the two men. And then there is the presence of the ominous Norwegian henchman known only as ‘Hate’.

The plan to pull off “the heist of the century” is established. Westie is to paint replicas of the paintings that they intend to steal, the rest of the team are to storm the warehouse during Doors Open Day and take the originals, which will then be swapped with the fakes. Everything is set and ready, there’s no room for mistakes – the day arrives. However, as is often the case with perfectly thought out plans, things don’t quite go accordingly.

A classic cat-and-mouse game ensues and Mackenzie soon realises that mixing with crooks and dipping your finger in the proverbial pie makes you question yourself like never before.

A professional in the field of crime writers, Rankin delivers a novel that will keep you in suspense with its tight plot, interesting characters and fast-paced motion. You will be left trying to guess what the next move is going to be and wondering what new twist lies on the next page.

Published in Culture and Entertainment, The Sunday Times – November 1, 2009