John Rebus shouldn't still be here. Honestly, by all accounts of medical science and police procedure, the man should have shuffled off his mortal coil—or at least his Edinburgh beat—decades ago. But here we are. Decades after Knots and Crosses first hit the shelves in 1987, the Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of Scottish crime fiction. It’s gritty. It’s damp. It smells faintly of stale cigarettes and industrial-strength floor cleaner.
Most people think they know Rebus. They think he’s just another "maverick cop" who hates his bosses and loves a pint of heavy. That’s a surface-level take. If you actually sit down and trace the arc from the early books to the later masterpieces like Even Dogs in the Wild or A Heart Full of Headstones, you realize Rankin isn't just writing whodunnits. He’s writing a biography of a city. Edinburgh isn't just a backdrop; it’s a character that ages, gentrifies, and rots right alongside the protagonist.
The evolution of John Rebus (and why he won't retire)
When Rankin first conceived Rebus, he wasn't even supposed to be a series character. Rankin was a postgraduate student, and he thought he was writing a modern-day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You can see those gothic bones in the first book. Rebus was younger, sure, but the darkness was already baked in. He’s a man of the old school, trapped in a world that is rapidly moving toward digital forensics and HR-approved sensibilities.
The brilliance of the Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series lies in its real-time aging. Most fictional detectives stay frozen in time. Hercule Poirot never really got old; he just stayed "elderly." Rebus, however, feels the passage of years. He gets slower. His lungs, ravaged by decades of smoking, eventually give out, leading to the COPD diagnosis that defines his later years. This isn't just a plot point. It’s a masterful way to keep a character relevant. When Rebus is forced out of the force due to mandatory retirement ages, he doesn't just disappear. He becomes a civilian "consultant" (often uninvited) because he literally has nothing else.
His relationship with Siobhan Clarke is the emotional glue of the later books. It started as a mentor-protege dynamic, but it evolved into something much more complex. Siobhan is the moral compass. She’s the one who has to navigate the modern Police Scotland bureaucracy while Rebus is off-grid, shaking down lowlifes in the Oxford Bar.
Edinburgh: The real crime scene
If you’ve ever walked the Royal Mile, you’ve seen the tourist version of Edinburgh. The bagpipes, the shortbread, the castle. Rankin hates that version. Or rather, Rebus does. The Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series takes you to the schemes—the housing estates like Niddrie or Pilton—that the tour buses avoid.
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Rankin uses the city’s geography to highlight social class. You have the New Town with its high ceilings and old money, and then you have the dark closes of the Old Town where the bodies usually turn up. It’s a city of dualities. It’s the "Caledonian Antisyzygy"—that fancy term Scottish scholars use to describe the "profoundly fractured" Scottish psyche. Rebus embodies this. He’s a former SAS soldier (though he rarely talks about it) and a lover of complex jazz and rock music. He’s a brute who reads Camus.
Take a book like The Falls. It centers on the "Arthur’s Seat coffins"—those tiny, creepy wooden dolls found in the 1830s. Rankin weaves that real-life historical mystery into a modern-day disappearance. It’s this blending of Edinburgh’s macabre history with contemporary grit that makes the series feel so lived-in. You’re not just reading a plot; you’re absorbing an atmosphere. It’s cold. It’s raining. It’s perfect.
Big Ger Cafferty and the mirror of the soul
You can’t talk about Rebus without talking about Morris Gerald Cafferty. Big Ger.
Every great detective needs a Moriarty, but Cafferty is more than that. He’s Rebus’s shadow. Over thirty years, the two have developed a relationship that borders on the domestic. They are two old predators who have outlived their era. Cafferty is the gangster who "runs" Edinburgh, or at least he used to. In the later books, he’s often seen in a wheelchair, confined to his penthouse, yet still pulling strings.
The tension between them is iconic because Rebus knows, deep down, they aren't that different. They both use violence when necessary. They both have a code that the modern world doesn't understand. There’s a recurring theme in the Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series that the law and justice are two very different things. Rebus is often willing to break the law to achieve what he considers justice, which frequently puts him in the same orbit as Cafferty.
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Why the series keeps topping the charts
Is it the plots? Honestly, sometimes the plots are the least interesting part. You don't read Rankin for a locked-room mystery. You read him for the dialogue. It’s sharp, dry, and distinctly Scottish. It’s the "ken" and the "aye" and the way characters communicate through silences and insults.
Rankin also has this uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist. Knots and Crosses was written in the shadow of the 80s. Later books tackled the Scottish Parliament's reopening, the G8 summit in Gleneagles, and the rise of cybercrime. He’s documented the transition from the Lothian and Borders Police to the centralized Police Scotland, showing exactly how much red tape was added in the process.
It’s also about the music. Rebus’s record collection is legendary. From The Rolling Stones to Jackie Leven, the soundtrack of the books is as curated as a high-end playlist. It gives the character a soul. You can tell a lot about a man by the fact that he listens to Beggars Banquet while nursing a cheap whisky in a dim flat.
Common misconceptions about the Rebus books
People often think you have to read them in order.
Kinda, but not really. While the character growth is linear, most of the novels stand alone as solid mysteries. If you jump into Black and Blue (widely considered the masterpiece of the series), you might miss some backstory about his daughter, Sammy, but you’ll still be floored by the writing. Black and Blue is where Rankin really found his stride, weaving the real-life "Bible John" killings into a fictional narrative. It’s ambitious, sprawling, and genuinely terrifying.
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Another myth is that Rebus is a "likable" guy. He isn't. He’s a terrible father for most of the series. He’s a nightmare colleague. He’s a functioning alcoholic who drives when he shouldn't and eats nothing but fried food. But he’s compelling. You root for him because he’s the only one who cares enough to keep digging when everyone else has moved on to the next fiscal quarter’s statistics.
How to actually start reading the Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series
If you are new to this world, don't feel overwhelmed by the 24+ novels.
- The Classic Entry Point: Knots and Crosses. It’s short. It’s a bit different from the rest, but it sets the stage.
- The "Greatest Hit": Black and Blue. If you only read one, make it this. It won the Gold Dagger and put Rankin on the global map.
- The Modern Era: Standing in Another Man's Grave. This marks Rebus’s return from retirement and introduces a more cynical, older version of the character that is fascinating to watch.
The Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series isn't just a collection of books; it's a chronicle of a changing nation. It deals with the fallout of deindustrialization, the complexities of Scottish identity, and the universal struggle of an aging man trying to remain relevant in a world that wants to put him on a shelf.
Rankin has hinted at the end before. He even "retired" the character once. But Rebus keeps coming back. Like a bad penny or a stubborn cold. And as long as there are dark corners in Edinburgh that need a light shone on them, we’ll probably keep reading.
To get the most out of your journey through the Ian Rankin Inspector Rebus series, focus on the atmosphere. Don't rush through the pages just to find out who the killer is. Listen to the music Rebus listens to—put on some John Martyn or some Van Morrison. Look up the streets he walks on Google Maps. See the contrast between the pristine gardens and the grey tenements. The joy of Rankin’s work is in the texture. It’s the grit under the fingernails. It’s the cold wind coming off the Firth of Forth. Once you get that Edinburgh chill in your bones, no other crime series will quite hit the same way.
Track down a copy of The Black Book next. It’s one of the best examples of Rebus’s "internal" life and features one of the most haunting opening sequences in the whole run. It’ll show you exactly why this series has outlasted almost every other detective franchise from the 80s.
Your Rebus Reading Strategy
- Don't skip the short stories: A Good Hanging provides great bite-sized insights into Rebus's logic.
- Watch the transition: Pay close attention to the book Exit Music. It was intended to be the finale, and the emotional weight is massive.
- Explore the "Rebus-Adjacent": Check out Rankin's Malcolm Fox series. Fox starts as Rebus’s antagonist (he's "The Complaints"—internal affairs) but eventually becomes a key player in the Rebus universe.
- Visit the Oxford Bar: If you ever find yourself in Edinburgh, go to the real "Ox" on Young Street. It’s exactly as Rankin describes it: small, no-nonsense, and the spiritual home of the Inspector himself.