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20 years of Rebus

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the publication of Knots and Crosses by Ian Rankin, the first in Rankin’s hugely successful series of mysteries featuring Edinburgh detective John Rebus.

In an interview with The Scotsman, which published Rankin’s very first short story (and which rewarded him with enough money to buy the typewriter on which Knots and Crosses was written), Rankin recalls that his “launch party” for his debut consisted of a solitary meal of steak and wine bought from a local grocery store. He also reveals that his original intention was to kill off Rebus in the first book.

Rankin also provides a list of books that have influenced him, including A Clockwork Orange, Catch-22, and Muriel Spark’s The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, a Quillblog favourite, which, admittedly, Rankin cites as a kind of anti-influence:

“It seemed nobody was writing books about contemporary Edinburgh; it was as if Jean Brodie had summed up the city for a generation. Her Edinburgh is very prim and proper; it wasn’t really a city I recognized, living in student digs, drinking in rough pubs. It wasn’t Jean Brodie’s Edinburgh I lived in.”

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