Ian Rankin Brings Tartan Noir to The New York Times
Posted on February 6, 2007
Fans of bestselling Scottish mystery author Ian Rankin will soon get to read his new novella in The New York Times, which is serializing the story.
The Rebus creator has just completed a novella, provisionally entitled Doors Open, about a heist in Edinburgh. The standalone story features a cast of original characters and will be published in 14 parts in the magazine section of the newspaper each Sunday from this March or April.We're not sure what's behind the resurgance of the serialization -- but it's definitely a revitalized form of showcasing fiction. We have the same problems with serializations that we have with miniseries on TV: we just can't make the commitment to keep coming back to see what happens next. (Although we might make an exception for Ian Rankin.)Rankin follows a growing number of writers tackling the revived serial genre, such as Alexander McCall Smith with the "44 Scotland Street" series in the Scotsman, and Ronan Bennett in the Observer with Zugzwang. Orion has no immediate plans to publish the Rankin novella, but deputy CEO and publisher Malcolm Edwards said that it will appear in book form "at some time."
Previous fiction serializations in the New York Times include Patricia Cornwell's At Risk, Michael Connelly's The Overlook and, most recently, Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road.
Now that we've learned to watch entire TV series on DVD or on Tivo (so we can miss the commercials), we've just gotten so spoiled. We do still love excerpts though, which is why we have so many excerpts on our books section. We read one excerpt, then go buy the book.