Yet Another Audio: "Doors Open" by Ian Rankin\

Yet Another Audio: Doors Open by Ian Rankin, 2008, downloaded from Wisconsin Digital Library.

Meh. The story was okay but I don't much care for Amateurs Plan A Heist novels. A Westlake style comedy would be more interesting.

Set in Edinburgh which, according to Rankin and his characters, is a small town without much excitement. At least when compared to Glasgow. [Edinurgh has 500,00 people so it seems pretty damn big to me.] Edinburgh is okay for rich guy Mike Mackenzie though.

Mackenzie hit it big when he and a college pal sold off their software company for a truckload of cash. Since then his college pal moved to Australia and goes surfing, nightclubbing, and hanging out with hot bikini women. Mackenzie has a penthouse apartment and goes to art shows.

Whether Mackenzie knows it or not he is bored and unsatisfied. He is pining for an art gallery manager and doesn't do much else except hang out with a couple other art fan dudes. One of those dudes, Gissing, is an art professor and he complains about all the art work stored away in private and museum collections that is never viewed or shared with the public. What a shame. Well, I guess there is nothing to be done about it...

But, wait! "Maybe," says Gissing "we can liberate those art works!" Mackenzie and his other pal, Allan, laugh it off and then take Gissing up on the offer. Of course things go wrong. Gissing's plan is to hire a art student to produce exacting copies of the stolen works. They will then rob the National gallery. After the heist the copies will be swapped for the real paintings and left behind. The art will be "recovered" and Gissing and the rest can keep the real works.

The heist will happen during the annual Doors Open weekend when various private locations - like the National Gallery's art warehouse - are open for tours. Why not break into the warehouse during the tours when alarms and defenses are down?

Things go wrong after Mackenzie's chance encounter with old high school class mate and gangster Chib. Mackenzie figures they need help from someone with experience. He recruits violent Chib to assist. Chib is a crook, he won't "help" anyone. Especially since he owns over a 100k Euros to some Norwegian Hell's Angels.

Further complications include a very nervous Allan. The art student's greedy girlfriend. A scary Danish debt collector hounding Chib. A Scottish cop out investigating Chib who figures out the connection between the robbery and Chib. Gissing goes missing. Chib wants more. So on. So forth.

The story just never grabbed me. According to my internet box there is a film version that showed in UK TV.