Ian Rankin Biography

Ian Rankin, OBE, DL (born 28 April 1960) is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels.

Early life

Born in Cardenden, Fife, Rankin was educated at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath and the University of Edinburgh, where he remained after graduation to work on a doctorate, which he did not complete, on Muriel Spark. He has taught at the university and retains an involvement with the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He lived in Tottenham, London for four years and then rural France for six while he developed his career as a novelist. Before becoming a full-time novelist he worked as a grape-picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk musician.

Career

Rankin did not set out to be a crime writer. He thought his first novels Knots and Crosses and Hide and Seek were mainstream books, more in keeping with the Scottish traditions of Robert Louis Stevenson and even Muriel Spark. He was disconcerted by their classification as genre fiction. Scottish novelist Allan Massie, who tutored Rankin while Massie was writer-in-residence at the University of Edinburgh, reassured him by saying, 'Do you think John Buchan ever worried about whether he was writing literature or not ?'

Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels are set mainly in Edinburgh. They are considered major contributions to the Tartan Noir genre. Ten of the novels were adapted as a television series on ITV, starring John Hannah as Rebus in Series 1 & 2, with Ken Stott taking on the role for Series 3-5.

In 2009, Rankin donated the short story "Fieldwork" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Rankin's story was published in the Earth collection.

In 2009 Rankin stated on Radio Five Live that he would start work on a five or six-issue run on the comic book Hellblazer, although he may turn the story into a stand-alone graphic novel instead. The Vertigo Comics panel at WonderCon 2009 confirmed that the story would be published as a graphic novel called Dark Entries, the second release from the company's new Vertigo Crime imprint.

Documentaries

He is a regular contributor to the BBC Two arts programme Newsnight Review. His 3-part documentary series on the subject of evil was broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2002. In 2005 he presented a 30-minute documentary on BBC Four called Rankin on the Staircase, in which he investigated the relationship between real-life cases and crime fiction. It was loosely based on the Michael Peterson murder case, as covered in Jean-Xavier Lestrade's documentary series Death on the Staircase. The same year he collaborated with folk musician Jackie Leven on the album Jackie Leven Said.

In 2007, Rankin appeared in programmes for BBC Four exploring the origins of his alter-ego character, John Rebus. Titled "Ian Rankin's Hidden Edinburgh" and "Ian Rankin Investigates Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde," Rankin looks at the origins of the character and the events that led to his creation.

In the TV show Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations, he takes a trip through Edinburgh with writer/cook Anthony Bourdain.

Personal life

He lives in Edinburgh with his wife Miranda and their two sons Jack and Kit.

In 2011 a group of ten book sculptures were deposited around Edinburgh as gifts to cultural institutions and the people of the city. Many of the sculptures made reference to the work of Rankin, and an eleventh sculpture was a personal gift to him.

Awards and honours

• 1988 Elected Hawthornden Fellow
• 1991 Chandler-Fulbright Award
• 1994 CWA Short Story Dagger for A Deep Hole
• 1996 CWA Short Story Dagger for Herbert in Motion in Perfectly Criminal
• 1997 CWA Gold Dagger for Fiction for Black and Blue
• 1997 Edgar Award for best novel, shortlist, Black and Blue
• 1999 University of Abertay Dundee honorary doctorate
• 2000 University of St Andrews honorary doctorate
• 2000 Palle Rosencrantz Prize (Denmark)
• 2002 Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature
• 2003 University of Edinburgh honorary doctorate
• 2003 Whodunnit Prize (Finland)
• 2003 Grand Prix du Roman Noir (France)
• 2004 Edgar Award for Resurrection Men
• 2005 CWA Lifetime Achievement Award (Cartier Diamond Dagger)
• 2005 Open University honorary doctorate
• 2005 Grand Prix du Roman Policier (France) for Set in Darkness
• 2005 Deutsche Krimi Prize (Germany), for Resurrection Men
• 2006 University of Hull honorary doctorate
• 2008 ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Author of the Year, for Exit Music.
• 2009 Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award, shortlisted Exit Music
• 2012 Specsavers National Book Award, Outstanding Achievement

Bibliography

To date he has written at least 25 novels, two short story collections, one Original Graphic Novel and a non-fiction book. He has also written an entry in Quick Reads 2009:

Year	Novel	Notes
1986	The Flood
1987	Knots and Crosses	1st Inspector Rebus novel
1988	Watchman
1990	Westwind
1991	Hide and Seek	2nd Inspector Rebus novel
1992	Tooth and Nail	3rd Inspector Rebus novel
	Strip Jack	4th Inspector Rebus novel
	A Good Hanging and Other Stories	Short stories
1993	Witch Hunt	Writing as Jack Harvey
	The Black Book	5th Inspector Rebus novel
1994	Bleeding Hearts	Writing as Jack Harvey
	Mortal Causes	6th Inspector Rebus novel
1995	Blood Hunt	Writing as Jack Harvey
	Let it Bleed	7th Inspector Rebus novel
1997	Black and Blue	8th Inspector Rebus novel won Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction
1998	The Hanging Garden	9th Inspector Rebus novel
1999	Dead Souls	10th Inspector Rebus novel
2000	Set in Darkness	11th Inspector Rebus novel
2001	The Falls	12th Inspector Rebus novel
2002	Resurrection Men	13th Inspector Rebus novel won The Edgar Award
	Beggars Banquet	Short stories
2003	A Question of Blood	14th Inspector Rebus novel
2004	Fleshmarket Close	15th Inspector Rebus novel
2005	Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey	Non-Fiction Awarded CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger
2006	The Naming of the Dead	16th Inspector Rebus novel
2007	Exit Music	17th Inspector Rebus novel won ITV3 Crime Thriller Award
2008	Doors Open
2009	A Cool Head	Quick Reads 2009
	The Complaints	1st Malcolm Fox novel
	Dark Entries	Vertigo Crime featuring John Constantine
2011	The Impossible Dead	2nd Malcolm Fox novel
2012	Standing in Another Man's Grave	18th Inspector Rebus & 3rd Malcolm Fox novel
2013	Saints of the Shadow Bible

Other publications

Recordings

• Jackie Leven Said (Cooking vinyl, 2005), with Jackie Leven
• The Sixth Stone (CD, 2007), with Aidan Moffat, on Ballads of the Book
• This Has Been the Death of Us (7th Realm Of Teenage Heaven, 2009), with Saint Jude's Infirmary
• The Third Gentleman (BBC Broadcast October 25, 1997. 87mins.) Black comedy set in 1790s Edinburgh.

Graphic novels

• Dark Entries (September 2009) with art by Werther Dell'Edera. Published by Vertigo Crime and starring John Constantine of Hellblazer.

Short stories

• An Afternoon (1984) (published in New Writing Scotland)
• Voyeurism (1985) (published in New Writing Scotland)
• Colony (1986) (published in New Writing Scotland)
• Territory (1987) (published in Scottish Short Stories 1987)
• Trip Trap (1992) (published in 1st Culprit)
• Marked for Death (1992) (published in Constable New Crimes 1)
• Well Shot (1993) (published in 2nd Culprit)
• Someone Got to Eddie (1994) (published in 3rd Culprit)
• A Deep Hole (1994) (published in London Noir)
• Adventures in Babysitting (1995) (published in No Alibi and in Master's Choice Two)
• Playback and Talk Show: New Edinburgh Crimes by Ian Rankin (1996) (published in Japan by Kenkyusha, edited by Paul Hullah and Yozo Muroya)
• Natural Selection (1996) (published in Fresh Blood)
• Herbert in Motion (1996) (published in Perfectly Criminal)
• Auld Lang Syne (1997) (published in The Orion Book of Murder)
• Principles of Accounts (1997) (published in Mystery's Most Wanted)
• Death is Not the End (1998) (novella later expanded into Dead Souls)
• The Hanged Man (2000) (published in The World's finest mystery and crime stories)
• Saint Nicked (2003) (published in two numbers of The Radio Times)
• Soft Spot (2005) (published in Dangerous Women)
• Not just another Saturday (August 2005) (written for SNIP, a charity organisation)
• Atonement (2005) (written for the anthology "Complete Short Stories")
• Sinner: justified (2006) (published in Superhumanatural)
• Oxford Bar (2007) (Essay published in the anthology "How I Write:The Secret Lives of Authors")
• Fieldwork (2009) (published in Ox-Tales)

Criticism

• Alegre, Sara Martin., ?Aging in F(r)iendship: 'Big Ger' Cafferty and John Rebus', in Clues: A Journal of Detection 29.2 (2011): 73-82.
• Horsley, Lee, The Noir Thriller (Houndmills & New York: Palgrave, 2001).
• Lanchester, John, ?Rebusworld', in London Review of Books 22.9 (27/4/2000), pp. 18"20.
• Lennard, John, 'Ian Rankin', in Jay Parini, ed., British Writers Supplement X (New York & London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004), pp. 243"60
• MacDonald, Erin E., ?Ghosts and Skeletons: Metaphors of Guilty History in Ian Rankin's Rebus Series', in Clues: A Journal of Detection 30.2 (2012): 67-75.
• Mandel, Ernest, Delightful Murder: A Social History of the Crime Story (Leichhardt, NSW, & London: Pluto Press, 1984).
• Marshall, Rodney, Blurred Boundaries: Rankin's Rebus (Amazon, 2012)
• Nicol, Christopher, 'Ian Rankin's 'Black & Blue' Scotnote No.24 (Glasgow:ASLS Publications, 2008)
• Ogle, Tina, ?Crime on Screen', in The Observer (London), 16/4/2000, Screen p. 8.
• Plain, Gill, Ian Rankin's Black and Blue (London & New York: Continuum, 2002)
• Plain, Gillian, ?Ian Rankin: A Bibliography', in Crime Time 28 (2002), pp. 16"20.
• Robinson, David, ?Mystery Man: In Search of the real Ian Rankin', in The Scotsman 10/3/2001, S2Weekend, pp. 1"4.
• Rowland, Susan, ?Gothic Crimes: A Literature of Terror and Horror', in From Agatha Christie to Ruth Rendell (Houndmills & New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 110"34.