Let it Bleed [antikvár]

INTRODUCTIONI first heard the Rolling Stones album Let It Bleed when I was only ten or eleven years old. I didn't like the music -at that age I was listening to Marc Bolan and not much else; it was my sister's boyfriend who was the Stones fan. I did find the lyrics intriguing, however. Even though I barely understood the references, I could tell that there was something 'dirty' about them. They hinted at sex, debauchery, violence and drugs. There was even one song ('Midnight Rambler') which seemed to be about a real-life serial killer. I eventually had to buy the album for myself.By this time, however, I was in my twenties and had already written a couple of books. I was also working as a music journalist and hi-fi equipment reviewer in London. Let It Bleed, with its fantastic studio sound, soon became a constant on my Linn Sondek, and when the time came, in 1994, to write the seventh John Rebus novel, I felt emboldened to borrow the album's title.Though the book is set in the depths of an Edinburgh winter, it was written at my house in south-west France, mostly in blazing summer heat. (I'd long since given up the hi-fi job, but still used the Linn record deck.) I'm not sure now if working on the book provided me with some sort of internal air-conditioning, but one thing I knew was that during any cold snap in Edinburgh you would want your central heating to be working. Hence the pun in the title - what Rebus really needs to bleed in the book is a radiator.