38-577: The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Sir Ian Rankin . The novels, centred on Detective Inspector John Rebus , are mostly based in and around Edinburgh . They are considered an important contribution to ' Tartan Noir '. 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
76-753: A Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg . 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
114-658: A downwards slope from Edinburgh Castle to Holyrood Palace and the ruined Holyrood Abbey . Narrow closes (alleyways), often no more than a few feet wide, lead steeply downhill to both north and south of the main spine which runs west to east. Significant buildings in the Old Town include St. Giles' Cathedral , the General Assembly Hall of the Church of Scotland , the National Museum of Scotland ,
152-654: A fresh protagonist in the form of Inspector Malcolm Fox of the police's Complaints and Conduct Department. In this book ( The Complaints ) and its 2011 sequel ( The Impossible Dead ) Rebus and his colleague (Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke) did not appear. However at the Hay Festival in June 2012 Rankin announced a further book, entitled Standing in Another Man's Grave , subsequently released in November 2012. This
190-702: 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
228-480: 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
266-427: 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 George Floyd was killed, while being filmed by bystanders. The Inspector Rebus series is commercially successful in
304-590: 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. However, 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
342-425: Is the name popularly given to the oldest part of Scotland 's capital city of Edinburgh . The area has preserved much of its medieval street plan and many Reformation -era buildings. Together with the 18th/19th-century New Town , and West End , it forms part of a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site . The " Royal Mile " is a name coined in the early 20th century for the main street of the Old Town which runs on
380-656: The Old College of the University of Edinburgh , Parliament House and the Scottish Parliament Building . The area contains underground vaults and hidden passages that are relics of previous phases of construction. No part of the street is officially called The Royal Mile in terms of legal addresses. The actual street names (running west to east) are Castlehill, Lawnmarket, High Street, Canongate and Abbey Strand. The street layout, typical of
418-459: The "tail", and the advantages of living within the defensive wall, the Old Town became home to some of the world's earliest "high rise" residential buildings. Multi-storey dwellings became the norm from the 16th century onwards. Many of these buildings were destroyed in the Great Fire of Edinburgh in 1824; the rebuilding of these on the original foundations led to changes in the ground level and
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#1732772173584456-469: The Canongate. These were built to a much higher scale than the older buildings and have greatly increased the population of the area. Archaeological work is usually required to be undertaken in advance of development work in the Old Town and this work has shed light on aspects of the Old Town's past. Some recent excavations have been: In 1824 a major fire, the Great Fire of Edinburgh , destroyed most of
494-419: 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
532-468: The Royal Mile and the newly built Waverley Station . The Edinburgh City Improvement Act of 1866 further added to the north south routes. This was devised by the architects David Cousin and John Lessels . It had quite radical effects: In addition to the Royal Mile, the Old Town may be divided into various areas, namely from west to east: Due to the space restrictions imposed by the narrowness of
570-517: The Royal Mile only had narrow closes and wynds leading off its sides. These began to be supplemented from the late 18th century with wide new north–south routes, beginning with the North Bridge / South Bridge route, and then George IV Bridge . These rectilinear forms were complemented from the mid-19th century with more serpentine forms, starting with Cockburn Street, laid out by Peddie and Kinnear in 1856, which specifically improved access between
608-425: The Scottish 'State'" and "Redevelopment Fiction: Architecture, Town-planning, and 'Unhomeliness.'" 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
646-678: The TV series. Readings of the short story "Facing the Music" from Beggars Banquet , read by James MacPherson , and of the novella Death Is Not the End , performed by Douglas Henshall , have also been broadcast by BBC Radio. A brand new story written for the stage by Ian Rankin and adapted by playwright Rona Munro entitled Rebus: Long Shadows had its premiere at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 20 September 2018 before touring
684-614: The UK. The production was directed by Roxana Silbert and starred Charles Lawson as Rebus. Detective novels Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.133 via cp1102 cp1102, Varnish XID 543643740 Upstream caches: cp1102 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 05:36:13 GMT Old Town, Edinburgh The Old Town ( Scots : Auld Toun )
722-541: The United Kingdom, accounting for an estimated 10% of all crime book sales in the UK as of 2015. The books routinely sell half a million copies each, and have been translated into 36 languages. As of 2015 they are published in the UK by the Orion Publishing Group . The seventeenth was thought to be the last as Rebus turned sixty, the age of retirement for CID officers, and in 2009 Rankin produced
760-525: 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
798-571: The author Alexander McCall Smith and Sheila Gilmore MP who regard the modern design as incompatible with the existing older architectural styles of the Old Town and inappropriate for a UNESCO World Heritage site. The Caltongate development was also opposed by the Cockburn Association and the Architectural Heritage Society of Scotland . The site developers Artisan Real Estate Investors have stated that
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#1732772173584836-805: The buildings on the south side of the High Street section between St. Giles Cathedral and the Tron Kirk. During the Edinburgh International Festival the High Street and Hunter Square become gathering points where performers in the Fringe advertise their shows, often through street performances. On 7 December 2002, the Cowgate fire destroyed a small but dense group of old buildings on the Cowgate and South Bridge. It destroyed
874-583: The creation of numerous passages and vaults under the Old Town. The construction of new streets including North Bridge and South Bridge in the 18th century also created underground spaces, such as the Edinburgh Vaults below the latter. Traditionally buildings were less dense in the eastern, Canongate, section. This area underwent major slum clearance and reconstruction in the 1950s, thereafter becoming an area largely of Council housing. From 1990 to 2010, major new housing schemes appeared throughout
912-451: 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
950-595: 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
988-614: The famous comedy club, The Gilded Balloon , and much of the Informatics Department of the University of Edinburgh, including the comprehensive artificial intelligence library. The site was redeveloped 2013-2014 with a single new building, largely in hotel use. In the 1990s the Old Town Renewal Trust in conjunction with the City of Edinburgh developed an action plan for renewal An area directly to
1026-492: The first series, before being replaced by Ken Stott for the next three. Series four of the programme also included an original episode, which unlike the other thirteen episodes aired, was not based on any of the Rankin novels. It was entitled "The First Stone". A rebooted series of six episodes aired on BBC One and BBC Scotland from 17 May 2024. Produced by Nordic streaming service Viaplay , and starring Richard Rankin , it
1064-547: 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
1102-604: 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
1140-541: The north of the Canongate has seen a large redevelopment project originally named Caltongate, but since rebranded as New Waverley. The scheme involved building of a mix of residential, hotel, retail and office buildings on the site of the former SMT bus depot in New Street, developing the arches under Jeffrey Street, redeveloping other surrounding sites and creating a pedestrian link from the Royal Mile to Calton Hill. The proposals were criticised by commentators including
1178-500: 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,"
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1216-481: The novels have won Spoken Word Awards : Strip Jack (Gold), A Question of Blood and Resurrection Men (Silver). An innovative new design, the illustrated audiobook was created for Rebus's Scotland (the CD box contains a 32-page booklet containing photographs from the book). Thirteen of the novels were dramatised for television between 2000 and 2007 in four series of Rebus . John Hannah played Inspector Rebus in
1254-454: The old quarters of many northern European cities, is made especially picturesque in Edinburgh, where the castle perches on top of a rocky crag , the remnants of an extinct volcano , and the main street runs down the crest of a ridge from it. This " crag and tail " landform was created during the last ice age when receding glaciers scoured across the land pushing soft soil aside but being split by harder crags of volcanic rock. The hilltop crag
1292-487: 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
1330-750: Was discussed in the British press as a novel which trangressed 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
1368-544: Was followed by further novels in which Rebus (now a civilian), Clarke (now promoted Detective Inspector) and Fox all served as protagonists. * = published in some version of The Beat Goes On (2014) ** = published in A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992) as well as in The Beat Goes On . All of the Rebus novels are available as audiobooks, some in several versions: narrated by different people or in abridged and unabridged form. Narrators include: Three of
1406-662: Was the company's first UK original. After post-production had ended, Viaplay decided to move away from the UK, and sold Rebus to the BBC . Alexander Morton voiced John Rebus in a 1999 BBC Radio 4 dramatization of Let it Bleed . Ron Donachie starred as Rebus in Radio 4's dramatizations of The Falls (2003), Resurrection Men (2004), Black & Blue (2008), Strip Jack (2010), The Black Book (2012), Set in Darkness (2014), A Question of Blood (2016) and Fleshmarket Close (2017), having previously played Rebus's Chief Constable in
1444-608: Was the earliest part of the city to develop, becoming fortified and eventually developing into the current Edinburgh Castle. The rest of the city grew slowly down the tail of land from the Castle Rock. This was an easily defended spot with marshland on the south and a man-made loch , the Nor Loch , on the north. Access to the town was restricted by means of various gates (called ports) in the city walls , of which only fragmentary sections remain. The original strong linear spine of
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