Genre and Literary Influences The Rebus novel series began in 1987 when Ian Rankin published
Knots and Crosses; his intention was to write a standalone variation on
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by
Robert Louis Stevenson, set in contemporary Edinburgh. He was at first upset that bookshops shelved it in the
crime fiction section, but he gradually accepted the fact that Rebus was to be the protagonist of a detective series: his goal became to write "on the surface a crime novel that was going to sell loads of copies, but which would be accepted by my peers in academia as serious Scottish fiction." From 1991 through 2007, in fact, Rankin produced a new Rebus novel every year, and there have been seven "late" novels from 2012–22, with a retired Rebus. The 1997 book,
Black & Blue, which linked Rebus's case with the unsolved
Bible John murders, achieved the double goal of sales and prestige. First, it was a best-seller and the backlist of Rebus novels came into high demand. Second, it won the
Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, but also came into consideration on more general lists of the best Scottish novels or writers, and was discussed in the British press as a novel which transgressed the boundaries of genre. The very fact that in 2002 a book on
Black & Blue was commissioned for the Continuum Contemporaries Series, alongside authors such as A.S. Byatt, Arundhati Roy, and Nobellists Kazuo Ishiguro and Toni Morrison, makes it clear that Rankin had become a "serious" author on the international stage. Rebus himself has continued to wrestle with his own "Hyde" aspects, particularly when confronted with old cases where his recklessness may have led to injustice or death. Other characters have borne out this theme of the dual self, for example the Wolfman serial killer in
Tooth and Nail and the former Nazi Lintz in
The Hanging Garden. Most importantly, Rebus has faced off since
The Black Book (1992) with
'Big Ger' Cafferty, a vicious gangster about his own age. Rankin compares the relationship between Rebus and Cafferty to that of Wringhim and Gilmartin (the devil himself) in the Scottish crime classic
Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by
James Hogg.
Place and Time Except for
Tooth and Nail, all the Rebus novels are set in
Scotland, and most of them in
Edinburgh. Rankin and interviewers such as
Gavin Esler have remarked that the city is a character in the novels. Early on, in 1992, Rankin published
A Good Hanging, a series of twelve stories set at different times of the year in different Edinburgh neighborhoods. In 1993, in
The Black Book, he also associated Rebus for the first time with a real Edinburgh police station,
St Leonard's, and thereafter began to place Rebus in real locations in the city, such as the
Oxford Bar and an apartment in Arden Street. In 2005 Rankin published ''Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey'', and Rebus-themed walking tours of Edinburgh have been available. Christopher Ward explores in depth the relationship of Rebus to Edinburgh in his 2010 M.Phil thesis at the University of Glasgow, "It's hard to be a saint in the city: Notions of city in the Rebus novels of Ian Rankin." Most of the novels include both scenes set in neglected or criminal neighborhoods and others set in casinos, deluxe hotels, or other haunts of the rich. Rebus (in his thoughts) and Rankin (in interviews) refer to this contrast as the "underworld and overworld" of the city. Rankin has noted that he enjoys writing about Rebus precisely because, as a policeman, he has a right to entry in both worlds. Rankin stresses that the city of Edinburgh itself has this Jekyll/Hyde quality, contrasting the twisting, multilayered
Old Town clustered around
Edinburgh Castle with the beautiful, rationally laid-out
New Town. Rankin decided early on that the Rebus novels would be set "in real time," that is, in about the year they were written, reflecting current events. Eleanor Bell notes that "Throughout his detective series Rankin has therefore aspired to present authentic visions of Scotland, to reflect subtle changes of detail in Edinburgh life and provide persuasive representations of the nation" as political and economic changes occur. Thus, for example, the Rebus novels reflect the long process of road blockages and drivers' frustrations during the construction of the
Edinburgh Trams. The novels have also tracked the even longer struggles for
Scottish Independence, including delving into the past in the Malcolm Fox novel
The Impossible Dead. As a result, the Rebus novels are discussed in contexts such as "Concepts of Corruption: Crime Fiction and the Scottish 'State'" and "Redevelopment Fiction: Architecture, Town-planning, and 'Unhomeliness.'"
Characters See
List of Inspector Rebus characters. The unifying point of view in the Rebus series is that of
John Rebus, with the point of view sometimes shifting to colleagues, criminals or suspects. Among the colleagues, the most important is
Siobhan Clarke, whose point of view is often as fully represented as Rebus's in the novels beginning with
Set in Darkness (2000). The character allowed critics to approach the Rebus series from a feminist point of view. When Rankin wrote a novel in which Rebus himself retired,
Exit Music (2007), there was speculation that the series would continue with Clarke as the main protagonist; the suggestion of Mark Lawson, that new Rebus novels would feature "Rebus playing Hannibal Lecter to her Agent Clarice Starling," is not completely outrageous, since in some of the later novels—e.g.
In a House of Lies (2018) and
A Heart Full of Headstones (2022)--Rebus is not only trying to advise her on her cases but is under investigation himself. When Rebus retired in
Exit Music, Rankin instead wrote two novels set in the same world of Edinburgh policing, but from the point of view of Malcolm Fox, an Inspector with
Internal Affairs. Although these novels,
The Complaints and
The Impossible Dead, are usually excluded from the Rebus series, Fox became a significant character in the Rebus novels when they resumed in 2012 with ''
Standing in Another Man's Grave''. He represents a point of view in which Rebus's maverick attitudes are not merely outmoded or superseded, but potentially criminal; however, after he becomes acquainted with Rebus, he recognizes that the older man did have standards of his own. Rankin used the point of view of the criminals being pursued by Rebus effectively in early novels like
Knots and Crosses and
Tooth and Nail but seems to have dropped this device. In some of the later novels, Rebus's nemesis, the gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty, is a point of view character; often the glimpse of his thoughts allows the reader to understand the strange relationship between the two not-quite-retired men. However, Cafferty's point of view usually confirms that he is even more evil than Rebus imagines. The young gangster
Darryl Christie, who appears in four novels from 2012-2016, is another effectively portrayed "bad guy." In
A Heart Full of Headstones Rankin gives us the point of view of a policeman who comes close to killing a suspect in the same manner as the
murder of George Floyd, while being filmed by bystanders. ==Publishing history==