Ian Rankin: "It's good. It's also, in current parlance, a mindf**k."
When small-time crook Peacock Johnson finds out that crime writer Ian Rankin has used him as the main villain in the book "A Question Of Blood", Peacock sees a potential money-making opportunity. Believing Rankin has portrayed him as a much more serious criminal than he actually is, Peacock decides he must be able to sue for defamation of character- and sets out to try and track Rankin down, planning to persuade Rankin to 'settle out of court'.
But nothing is ever simple in Peacock's world, and in the course of attempting to locate Rankin he ends up becoming the major suspect in the murder of another Scottish crime writer, Frank McAlpine. With the police on his tail, Peacock changes tack- and instead of demanding financial retribution from Rankin he decides to enlist his help in working out who really killed Frank McAlpine. And so Rankin, for the first time in his life, must put his fictional detective skills into practice in the real world.
Speaking of "Peacock's Tale" in The Independent newspaper, Ian Rankin said- "You think, 'Hang on, if he's not real, and I am real, maybe he's real and I'm not real..."
So come on in and enjoy the fun, as Peacock careers from disaster to disaster, trying to get his life back on track- with a wee bit of help from the world's premier writer of Tartan Noir.
