Finding Treasures

I'm one of those people who can't pass a bin, a rack, or the book department at Wal-Mart (this is the closest thing to a bookstore we have in our area) without stopping to take a look. So when I discovered a cardboard bin at the local grocery store yesterday, I stopped to paw through it.

The bin was full of children's books, cook books, and knitting and needlework books and one lone copy of Ian Rankin's "Knots & Crosses". I've been pondering how this book came to be in the bin and I suppose someone assumed it was a needlework book and tossed it in. Their mistake, my treasured find.

This book is the first in Rankin's Rebus series, a series our library doesn't stock. I'd only read one other Rebus book that I'd run across called "Resurrection Men" which I enjoyed and had me on the lookout for more of his work. Right now, I'm forty three pages in and can't wait to get back to it.

But the greatest treasure I've found in this book, besides the wonderful story, is Rankin's introduction. He explains how in the first draft he killed Rebus off, as he never planned this book to be the start of a series, and he asks the question where would he be now if he hadn't continued the series? And the writer in him wonders what he was thinking as he wrote this book, explaining how he created Rebus and taking us on his creative journey. Excellent stuff for a novice writer to read because he doesn't sugar-coat his journey.

So, thank you Ian Rankin for giving us a glimpse of your journey and for not killing off John Rebus in his first book.

And what about you? What treasures have you found in a most unlikely place?