Rankin After Rebus
Scottish Crime Author Ian Rankin Speaks About His Forthcoming Novel
Two years ago, Edinburgh crime writer Ian Rankin announced the title of his final book featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus, Exit Music, in the main theatre of the Edinburgh Book Festival.
Last year he announced a new book reworked from a heist thriller short story he originally wrote for New York Times Magazine called Doors Open. This year he released details of his forthcoming novel which returns to Lothian and Borders Police but with a brand new character that he admits may resurface in the future.
The Complaints
The main character of The Complaints, which is to be released on 3 September 2009, is Malcolm Fox who works in the complaints department of Lothian and Borders Police. His department investigates complaints against police officers ranging from police neighbours playing their music too loud to allegations that police officers have taken bribes, so he acts as a sort of spy in the police force.
Fox's comfortable existence is disturbed when he himself is accused of something, which means he has to break the rules to clear his name.
The book begins in February 2009 and, just as the Rebus novels were always set against a backdrop of real events at a particular time, it is set against the current economic depression, which has led some newspapers to report, incorrectly, that one of the characters is actually former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Fred Goodwin (one report got it completely wrong and said that the book was a biography of Goodwin).
Fox Is Not Rebus
The character of Malcolm Fox is about as far from John Rebus as Rankin could possibly have made him. Rebus is the hard-drinking, bitter, solitary, cynical and generally unhappy character familiar throughout detective fiction from Philip Marlowe onwards.
Fox, however, is a happily-married family man who lives in a bungalow in Oxgangs and doesn't drink, preferring to crack open an Appletise rather than a bottle of whisky after a hard day at the office. Where Rebus plays vintage rock records through his headphones to wind down, Fox turns on his DAB radio to the Birdsong channel, which plays a constant fifteen-minute loop of, believe it or not, birdsong.
Rankin has even divided the two characters when it comes to football: where Rebus was a Raith Rovers fan and his sergeant Siobhan supported Hibs, Fox's loyalties lie with Hearts.
Another Crime Series Character?
Rankin said that after writing Exit Music he was given the freedom to write whatever he wanted, and the first idea that came to him was another crime novel. He admitted that he likes the character of Malcolm Fox and thinks that there is the potential to write one more book at least around him, raising the possibility of another crime series.
The new book is still set in Rankin's beloved home city of Edinburgh, which he still thinks he is finding more out about through his writing. However he did say that the complaints department has the authority to travel far more widely than Rebus ever could to investigate officers in other regions, and so the next book could possibly be set in another part of Scotland entirely.
The Complaints is due to be published by Orion in hardback on 3 September 2009 and in paperback on 5 August 2010.
Ian Rankin signing at 2008 Edinburgh Book Festival
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