Before I discuss Ian Rankin’s The Rise, I have to point out this was an Amazon Original Story, so it’s only available as a Kindle download or an Audiobook. It’s short, just 86 pages, and worth the hour or hour and a half it takes to read it. There’s a solid plot, enough character development, and the perfect ending, so much more than I expect from short stories.

Detective Sergeant Gillian Gish is called to a crime scene at 2 AM. The deceased is the twenty-two-year-old concierge at The Rise, a twelve-story luxury apartment building in London. It seems, though, that there are only a half dozen people who live in the building, including the owner who lives in the penthouse. But, Gish has a hard time getting access to the apartments to question the residents. She and her boss have to tangle with several governments, including their own, in order to ask questions of people who are not used to answering to the police. When a second body is found, there’s even more reasons to account for the residents.

I’m not surprised Ian Rankin’s The Rise is a complex short story. I’m really only surprised because it’s unusual to find such a well-written police procedural in such a short form, a police procedural with such well-developed characters in just eighty-six pages. It’s well worth your time.

The Rise by Ian Rankin. Amazon, 2023. 86p.

FTC Full Disclosure – I downloaded the story as part of my Prime subscription.