Doors Open

Uncorrected Proof. 8vo. 316pp. Pictorial wraps. Originally published in serial novel form in fifteen successive issues of the New York Times Magazine (May 13 2007 – August 19 2007). A special edition, utilising sheets from the Orion trade edition, and numbering 80 signed copies quarter-bound in leather over marbled boards (plus 16 lettered deluxe copies), was published a week later, on September 25, 2008, by Scorpion Press.

Signed by Rankin on the title page with his knots and crosses motif at the 5th Agatha Crime Festival in Athens, on his 64th birthday. "When I handed in the manuscript, my publisher said: 'That's a most unusual crime novel. Nobody dies.' And it's true. Nobody dies," he told us, spotting the proof cover.

In search of some excitement, three bored friends attend a fine art auction and scheme of 'liberating' a number of paintings from Scotland's National Gallery. A non-Rebus stand-alone heist thriller, set against the backdrop of the G8 summit at Gleneagles. A small screen adaptation, starring Douglas Henshall, Ken Collard and Stephen Fry, was broadcast on Boxing Day on ITV. "Fast, slick and exciting." –William Leith, Evening Standard