4/12/2023 0 Comments Mostrecent ian rankin novel![]() The book, which centres on a corrupt west Edinburgh police station and domestic abuse claims against an officer, was inspired by recent scandals. I came back to Edinburgh, typed up the notes and started writing. I would tap in notes on my iPhone of what I thought this book would be: who was in it, what was happening, why it was happening. In January we went on holiday to St Lucia and I had a June deadline for a book I hadn't even started," he explains. It was written in an intense burst of creativity with its deadline fast approaching. A Heart Full of Headstones opens with Rebus - now retired and facing ill health and loneliness - in court on a murder charge and ends on a brilliant cliffhanger. Ian has spoken movingly of how his anger at Kit's condition informed his early work when the family was living in France and he was struggling to write. The couple have two children, including younger son Kit, 27, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and lives in care near the family home. "Today Ian and his wife Miranda, a civil servant turned professional tapestry weaver, live modestly, giving 30-40 per cent of their net annual income - a decent six-figure sum - to charity. If Knots And Crosses had been a worldwide hit, I'd have been completely insufferable it'd have been helicopters everywhere and gold-plated pinball machines in every room of my mansion." "By the time success came, I was levelheaded. "The bean counters now say you make it big and young or you don't make it at all. Were he starting out today, Ian doesn't believe he would have a chance. It was Rebus book 11, Set In Darkness, before I hit number one." "The book after that, The Hanging Garden, spent one week at number ten in the bestseller lists. It wasn't until the eighth Rebus book Black And Blue won the coveted Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year that things started to change. Hide And Seek, Tooth And Nail, and Strip Jack followed in swift succession, but success remained elusive. Once I'd done two or three, I was set in my ways, but there was a time when it might not have been so." Ian continues: "And I went, 'Yeah, I liked him too, maybe I should give the crime novel another go?' Nothing else I'd tried had worked. ![]() Then his editor asked: "Whatever happened to that guy Rebus, I liked him?" Knots And Crosses' intriguing protagonist and twisting plot set the template for later books, but life went on unchanged and Ian's next efforts were spy novel Watchman - "an attempt to become John le Carré" - and techno-thriller Westwind. ![]() "I think it does put folk off, too, looking at my books and there are 24/25 in a series, they might think, 'I don't want to start that, it's a big commitment'." "It took a long time, and it's a double-edged sword writing a series," he smiles. I wanted to sell enough copies to be a full-time writer, but be respected within the literary community." "I was a big fan of Clive Barker and Ramsey Campbell and I thought, 'Oh, these books sell a lot, maybe I should write horror?' I did start pencilling one out but it never got anywhere. "As a working-class kid, I wanted to write books people would pay to read," he admits. Someone's going to make a lot of money out of Scotland's independence and where there's big money at stake, darkness gathers.Growing up in a tough Fife mining community, Ian had no pretensions about writing. What's worse, as the case progresses, the Inspector finds himself face to face with one of Edinburgh's most notorious criminals - a man he thought safely out of harm's way for years to come. ![]() Roddy Grieve's notoriety brings a whole host of problems, including his seductive sister Lorna, one of Rebus's youthful fantasies made flesh. This time the victim is no mummified mystery man, but Roddy Grieve, a prospective MSP, and the powers that be are on Rebus's back demanding instant answers. Days later, in the gardens outside, Queensberry House's third body is found. When the fireplace where the youth died is uncovered, another more recent murder victim is brought out into the daylight. A fate befitting its new inhabitants, some would say. Queensberry House is home not just to the new Scotland's rulers to be, but to the legend of a young man roasted on a spit by a madman. It's a momentous time and political passions run high ' Detective Inspector John Rebus is charged with liaison, thanks to the new parliament being resident at Queensberry House bang in the middle of his St. Edinburgh, 'a mad god's dream / Fitful and dark', is about to become the home of the first Scottish parliament in nigh on three hundred years. ![]()
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