First the Book - Now the Author (Ian Rankin in general)

Member Name: Glasgow Girl

Product:	Ian Rankin in general
Date:	03/09/01 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An Author of Complex, well researched Detective Novels

Disadvantages: None, Unless you count their Edinburgh settings.

At one point during 1999, author Ian Rankin held sway over best-sellers list, holding down no less than nine of the twenty available slots. He was said to have been the first author to have accomplished this amazing feat.

Although a relative newcomer to his work, I think what is ?drawing me in? is that I see Ian Rankin as a ?social novelist?, in that he has an all-too-rare ability; - he can reveal to his reader what is all to common but ?swept under the carpet? in today?s society, rampant moral corruption. He has the courage to write about those unmentionables, ?ethical standards? and ?moral responsibility?.

On a lighter note, what I like about the little ?Rebus? I have read to date is that there always seems to be some carefully worked out sub-plots running underneath the main story-lines. I like that, and I like the way he (Rankin) makes even the secondary themes as interesting as that of the main thrust of his tales. Nobody is irrelevant, all his characters ?fit? and have a part to play.

His main character was pushing forty when a twenty-five year old Ian Rankin wrote the first Rebus book, and as he says himself,
? ? the only 40-year-olds I knew were my oldest sister and her husband.?
All the more credit to the man then, that he is able to make Rebus such a believable character.

Ian Rankin was born in Cardenden, in my favourite part of Scotland (next to Glasgow that is) in Fife, in 1960. A product of a comprehensive school education, he went to the University of Edinburgh, achieving an MA in English Literature (while specialising in American Literature). His education can be said to have stalled when he failed to complete a PhD in the Modern Scottish Novel, owing to some early success, having some of his early work, poetry and short stories in the main, published.

From the little research I?ve been able to carry out to date, I find that not only is Ian Rankin a fine writer with skills which consistently b
ring forth the best in crime fiction, he is also ?one of the good guys? being generous with his time, passing on his personal slant on crime writing and giving the most entertaining and interesting talks at numerous book festivals.

In an attractive, somewhat self-effacing fashion , Ian Rankin has been quoted as saying he reached the name of ?John Rebus? via the Ernest Tidyman's ?Shaft? (John) and the ?Rebus? from a picture puzzle in the "Merry Mac Fun Page" of the Sunday Post, in those days a rather old-style Scottish newspaper.

His background is that of a worker in the
? ? the National Folktale Centre? in London and then as a journalist on a hi-fi magazine, where he rose to the position of editor - while also doing ?lit-crit? work on the way home and at week-ends
(apparently, he has a chapter on Muriel Spark in a publication called ?The Scottish Novel Since the 1970's?).

His first Rebus book had been published around that same time and, as the months slipped past, people would ask him what had happened to his character in the meantime. As a result, it would appear, the next Rebus book was written with Rebus being promoted to Detective Inspector.

That was the second Rebus book but, even after those he has written since, Ian Rankin says,
?I still don't know the guy very well. He surprises me from book to book. ? he was invented before I ever met a real-life policeman ? I've only the vaguest idea what he looks like ??

The character of Rebus stands to reach an even wider audience and simultaneously a wider fan-base when, over the coming weeks, actor John Hanna, who?s production company own the right to all the Rebus books, brings his characterisation of Rebus back to our television screens in the tele-visual premier of ?The Hanging Gardens?.

According to Ian Rankin, his character has ?? a stupid name?, that being said, it can?t be too stupid a name - as his instigator?s
popularity, both on the small screen and in print will testify.
If you are lucky enough to have a first edition copy of Rankin?s very first novel, The Flood, published by Polygon, - you may well find it worth a trip to your local book buyer or putting it up for auction on the net as it appears there are only four hundred copies in existence.
It might be worth a right few quid, or bawbees even ?

By 1990, to use Rankin?s own words? he had
?? dropped out and moved to the French countryside.?
However, he goes on to say that,
?This pastoral idyll failed to stop me writing dark, dark fictions.?
and after winning his second CWA Short Story Dagger award in 1996, he celebrated by moving back to Scotland.
(as any self-respecting Scot would).

He is married and has two sons named Jack and Kit and, as far as I can ascertain, now lives in Edinburgh.

I hope you?ve found the results of my research into this fine author to be of some interest. Now that it?s finished, -
I must away and read my next Rebus book ?
as I hinted at in my op on "The Falls" -
It feels like I've developed a yearning to read many more Rebus books.
GG

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