In ‘Knots and Crosses’ Rebus was trying to get promoted and the only way he thought he could do that is to try and get transferred onto the murder inquiry which was being worked in Edinburgh at the moment in which three girls had been abducted and killed and their bodies were dumped afterwards. While in ‘A Question of Blood’ Rebus is called in to a shooting in a private school in South Queensferry which an ex-serviceman of the SAS had came into the School’s Senior Pupil Common Room and shot two pupils dead and injured another before killing himself. Rebus was called into the case as he had been once a trainee for the SAS and his experience would prove vital in the case he could look into the killers mind and give an army serviceman’s view into why he had done it. Between the two things in both books there will be one major difference; in ‘Knots and Crosses’ Rebus does not get automatically personally involved and every hour on the case while ‘In A Question of Blood’ he tries to take over the investigation and solve the case on his own with the help of his close friend and colleague Siobhan Clarke.
With both ‘Knots and Crosses’ and ‘A Question of Blood’ there is something in common; one of the characters is the subject of mysterious letters which tie in with the case. For in ‘Knots and Crosses’ it was Rebus who was receiving the letters and this had lead to the case as it was personal clues to the identity of the killer but he did not think of anything about it at first but he did when his own daughter went missing. The letters that Rebus had consisted of a note and a piece of string, which was tied in a knot or a cross. Whereas in ‘A Question of Blood’ it was not Rebus that is receiving the letters but it is his colleague and close friend Siobhan Clarke who is receiving them from the person that Rebus was supposed to have killed. What was common in both sets of letters are that they tie in with the case that was relevant at the time as in ‘Knots and Crosses’ it was a kind of map made only for Rebus as it was later found out that the killer had a personal vendetta against Rebus which went back to his Army days; while in ‘A Question of Blood’ the letters that Siobhan were receiving was from the deceased’s girlfriend as she was blaming her for his death.
Rebus has two options in both novels which determine the course of both stories, these decisions both involves his family and whether to carry on with the case. The first of these will happen in ‘Knots and Crosses’ when Rebus’s daughter Sammy is abducted by the killer in an attempt for Rebus to realise who the killer was and when Rebus’s bosses at Fettes pulled hi of the case; ha had decided to carry on personally to find his daughter and get revenge on his once best friend. Whereas in ‘A Question of Blood’ it was Rebus’s cousin’s son that was killed by the killer. When Rebus first heard his cousin’s family name mentioned, a choice automatically appeared which was that if he told superiors of the family connections then he would be brought off the case and put on suspension for the other murder case that is going on in at that moment; or he can keep quiet and remain on active duty. The choice that he made in both novels was left to the readers own imagination.
With both cases, it will affect Rebus in a huge way as they both involve family. Rebus had started to spend all night looking over the case notes and thinking over the case notes and the case in ‘A Question of Blood’ got Rebus so much involved that he spent the night watching a girl on a web cam of a girl sleeping to see if there were any links that would explain why the two boys who died had anything to do with this. It was this determination that had got Rebus through the case and also helped solved them; as in ‘Knots and Crosses’ the letters that Rebus had been receiving with the sting had been clues which lead to the killers identity and where he could find him. While in ‘A Question of Blood’ when Rebus had been watching the web cam that he night he had realised that it was not the ex-serviceman of the SAS that killed the two boys but it was that of one of the boys’ friends who had got jealous of them watching the girl’s web cam as he had a crush on the girl himself which led to him killing the two boys and himself.
With both books, Rebus has not always put his family first before anything. His work caused him and his then wife Rhona to split up. As it appeared in ‘Knots and Crosses’ when on Rebus’s day off; he took his daughter Samantha or Sammy as Rebus called her, out for the day. At the start of the book when Sammy is introduced to the reader, Rankin shows that she adores Rebus and that Rebus had regretted him and Rhona, his ex-wife had split up because he cannot spend as much time with Sammy as he wishes. But as the series goes on the love that Sammy has towards Rebus has changed as in ‘Knots and Crosses’ she was used as a pawn in the Killer’s game with Rebus as she was abducted and held captive and when she found out that Rebus knew her abducter and the love changed into hate and regret. In addition, this leads to her mother to move to London to protect her from Rebus. As the years had gone by, Sammy had moved back to Edinburgh and made contact with her father and the relationship was once again like it was at the start of the book again but when the accident occurred which lead to Sammy being confines to a wheelchair, the relationship started to drift apart once again. This seemed to see Rebus lose his purpose in life.
Rebus has always had a problem with the senior management on the force as it seen throughout the whole series as he shown disrespect to senior officer as in ‘A Question of Blood’ when the ACC had been after Rebus to let him know officially that he was on suspension he deliberately ignored his phone so that he can keep on with his job and what was worst is that he had got his colleague Bobby Hogan to lie for him as well. Whereas in ‘Knots and Crosses’ he did everything that his superiors had asked him to do until when he was told not to act on his own to deal with his daughter’s abduction on his own terms which Rebus had just went and done.
To conclude this essay it had looked like that Rebus had not changed as much in the terms of the way that he handles cases and the way he works to solves them. But what has changed is the way that he treats his family and the people that he holds close to him as he knows that he would be a lonely man if they left him and what has also changed is the way that he treats authority in the force as he will disobey direct orders and have raging arguments with his superiors; this compared to the first Rebus when he had just wanted to work hard and gained promotion so that he would not be giving such stupid jobs when major inquires occurred in Edinburgh but throughout the whole series he has been awkward towards his job and has a case of anti-authority towards his superiors..
