Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rebus Mystery Series

Edinburgh Ghosts Tours - Janice & Mairiuna

The Rebus Tours ! Can’t wait to play the game  Janice, but you know, it’s already listed on Itinerary 7, together with the Ghosts Tours and a number of other ones for that matter!

Remember how we used to stop in front of every poster advertising the Tours in Edinburgh and how desperately we tried to understand what the lively guides were telling to fascinated audiences all over the Old Town. I’m looking forward to following Colin Brown on the steps of Inspector Rebus ! He seems to know very well his subject! Do you think he speaks French ?

It makes me think, Janice, wouldn’t it be a good idea before embarking on the Rebus Tour to try and read as many Inspector Rebus books as we can? Hum.. I know, another big challenge for both of us, but it would be fun to offer reviews of these books to our readers.

In your last post you said there were seventeen Rebus novels in all, and that Knots and Crosses, published in 1987, was the first one, while Exit Music published in 2007, was the last one. We were in Edinburgh in 2007, and I remember how we wanted to go to the Book Festival to have one copy of this book signed by Ian Rankin for Fabien, the polar expert of the Toulousan Quartet.

Fabien & Nathalie - Toulousan Quartet

We’ve only read one Rebus story so far. I read it to you during our long travel by car from France to Scotland. It was Set in Darkness,  published in 2000, but of course I read the French translation of it, Du fond des ténèbres. (2004). We’ve bought several books by Ian Rankin at Wigtown and I’ve just ordered a copy in English of Set in Darkness on Amazon. It could be useful to have some quotations in English to illustrate our Rebus chronicles as well as Scotiana’s point of view of Edinburgh.

We had printed a number of very interesting articles about Ian Rankin and some very useful notes given to us by Karine Gilabert, an expert in the very big polar department of Mollat Library, Bordeaux to bring along with us on our last trip to Scotland and they proved very useful.

Below is the complete list of all the novels in the series.

Ian-Rankin-Set-in-Darkness-Inspector-Rebus

Du Fond Des Ténèbres - Ian Rankin - Inspecteur Rebus

– Knots and Crosses (1987)

– Hide and Seek (1991)

– Tooth and Nail (1992)

– Strip Jack (1992)

– The Black Book (1993)

– Mortal Causes (1994)

– Let it Bleed (1995)

– Black and Blue (1997)

– The Hanging Garden (1998)

– Dead Souls (1999)

– Set in Darkness (2000)

– The Falls (2001)

– Resurrection Men (2002)

– A Question of Blood (2003)

– Fleshmarket Close (2004)

– The Naming of the Dead (2006)

– Exit Music (2007)

And to begin with the beginning, what about reading the first Inspector Rebus novel Knots and Crosses?

And now exit Mairiuna 😉

A bientôt et bonne lecture !

.