To keep it short and simple: IR = Ian Rankin and MB = Marcel Berlins, the crime fiction critic of The Times. Note: This is a record from handwritten notes and not a tape therefore the words may not be exactly what was uttered at the time. I did my best, I promise!
Location and setting: a very big white tent in Hay, with only the front row “reserved” seats not fully occupied. Rain finally holding off!
In his introduction, MB was very pleased to acknowledge IR as a favourite author of his, which led to IR pulling out some rolled notes and not quite handing them over! MB went on to say that IR’s responsible for 10% of all crime fiction sold in Britain. IR responded that this was true 2 years ago, but not necessarily these days; he also made of saying it depended on when John Grisham had a book out.
MB – in the last 3 books you seem to be trying to get rid of Rebus and developing Siobhan, is the series reaching the end, with Rebus fading out?
IR – It’s not a conscious decision. Siobhan was meant to be side kick but she developed as her own character; I could do a lot with her, Cafferty also, because of the sheer force of personality. I made a decision early on that Rebus would be a character in real time. He’s now 56/57/58 and I made the decision to go real time in order to show changes. Readers may allow you to stop the clock but cut off looms. I have a two book contract for two Rebus books and that’s it for him.
MB – Henning Mankell tried that with the daughter in the last book but I don’t think he managed it.
IR – When I was a reader and not a writer it was not possible to contact authors. Now I get emails with lots of suggestions about what I can do with Rebus. A Member of the Scottish Parliament, a couple of weeks ago, suggested a change in the retirement age for cops in Scotland so that Rebus can on going. I was 24 when I wrote the first book about a jaded 40 year old cop. There is a gap covering the late 70s and early 80s, so there’s an opportunity there, plus an opportunity to write about great 70s music.
MB – and a cop going overseas shows “running out of ideas”…
IR – I did set one book in London because I was living there at the time. I lived there and hated it and Rebus hated it for me in the book. There are chances for overseas work, e.g. where a person of Scottish origins dies overseas in suspicious circumstances, but Rebus would hate overseas. Reginald Hill, in his fourth or fifth Dalziel and Pascoe, had Andy Dalziel on holiday where he comes across a murder.
MB – Kathy Reichs was in Guatemala in her last book and is in Jerusalem this time…
IR – Rebus cannot travel very far. I take pains to ensure Rebus what cops can do. A tiny percentage in Scotland are cops, but in the early days I was criticised as I didn’t realise there were 15 in a jury. I’d used 12.
MB – has Rebus changed since you first imagined him?
I had no path as it was meant to be a one-off book. Rebus was shot and killed at the end of the book in one draft. My agent changed that I think. My editor asked about Rebus after another two books had been written. I may write beyond the two books that end the series.
MB – why hasn’t Rebus worked on TV?
The best books don’t always come off on screen. LA Confidential worked well which surprised me. “Dalziel and Pascoe” is successful but it’s not my idea of them. I create a 3D world and TV does a hatchet job on it. Black and Blue was a 500 page novel turned into a 100 page script. Chop. Then they take out the expensive stuff, so out comes the oil part of the story. Hannah’s production company bought the rights and sold it to ITV. Hannah’s too clean living for Rebus, but ITV specifically asked for him. The baton has now passed to Ken Stott.
(At this point there were some cheers from the audience.)
Filming starts next week on The Falls and Fleshmarket Close.
I met Stott for the first time a couple of weeks ago at a film premier. He was with Bill Nighy and I heard him say to Nighy “Darling, are you going to watch the film or just go to the bar?” “Darling” – for an actor playing the Rebus role?!
MB – following TV, the characters of Wexford and Morse then seemed to be written in the books with a view to the TV series.
IR – Yes, the hard edges were lost on Morse. And there was Dexter in his Hitchcockian moments. Val (McDermid) did that do in the first one (Wire in the Blood). I did it once but it wasn’t shown. I know I was in it because a fan in Australia, where they screened it, taped it, freeze framed it and then took a Polaroid and sent it to me.
MB – and Rebus’s drinking is getting worse?
IR – No, his drinking is getting better. In Black and Blue he had his King Lear moment, ended up fighting with his best friend. Since then he’s better, more together. As it’s the twentieth anniversary, the books are coming out again with new introductions, therefore I’ve had to read the series from the start. Some were not so good when written and others are vice versa, not necessarily the ones I thought. And there are mistakes there; Cafferty’s background is given that he grew up in Edinburgh and then later it’s Glasgow.
I was satisfied with the development of the work. The first book is steeped in my time at university – Rebus was a bookworm, but I got him out of that soon. That had been me in miniature. In Knots and Crosses his brother says “…the manumission of dreams…” I looked it up in a dictionary and still don’t understand.
At the end of Strip Jack I made a decision to burn down the fictional police station and set up in a real for more realism. In Fleshmarket Close there’s a new police station as in real life St Leonard’s ceased to have CID, therefore that had to happen.
It’s my first year off from doing a Rebus novel this year after doing one every year since they started, but The Flood is reissued in September along with Rebus’s Scotland, a book on Edinburgh. The pictures on the covers of the books are real places, well done, and the photographs for the book are taken by the same photographer. The book is part autobiographical, part Rebus biography, part view of Scotland.
IR then did a reading from the chapter on “booze” – “Through a Glass Darkly”.
MB – Do you still go to the Oxford Bar?
Yes. I get letters addressed to “Ian Rankin, The Oxford Bar, Edinburgh” which get to me. I’m not allowed to rise above the flock, so I’m not “Ian Rankin the writer there”, I’m “Ian Rankin the punter”. They still ask me “when are you going to get a real job?”
MB – And Rebus’s taste in music?
Has to be me for music taste, plus Siobhan has some of my taste too. Rebus’s taste in music formed in the 70s, should have been the 60s really given his age. Telstar by The Tornadoes is the first music mentioned in the books, that’s 1963; good for Rebus.
MB – And tell us about Jackie Leven.
I read a review of Jackie Leven in a magazine. It said “like Van Morrison” and I like Van Morrison so I bought the album and thought it was good. I thought Rebus would like it. In one of the books he takes someone back to his flat and turns on the album. Jackie Leven read this and wrote to my publisher. The we started working together. “Jackie Leven Said” is a short story for a show. It’s now a CD. I have a CD in HMV! Plus a four star review in the Independent! Bruce Springsteen only got three stars!
We’ve done six events the last one was in Kirkcaldy. We both grew up near there. Yes, it’s me singing Galveston by Glen Campbell on the CD. MOJO said “Ian Rankin does not murder Galveston!"
MB – What next?
A weird thing – most of my dreams as a writer have come true. I got the “Diamond Dagger” for “lifetime achievement”. I’ve had a street named after me. I will keep writing as long as I have stories to tell. As long as there are questions to ask, I will still keep writing, not necessarily crime. But I can say it in the crime novel therefore why pick another form? The reader gets a rollercoaster ride and it’s easier to read than Ulysses. Why write any other kind of book, when you can get what you want out of a crime book?
MB then invited questions from the audience.
Do Edinburgh bars and pubs beg for inclusion in your novels?
The City fathers were originally concerned when Edinburgh was painted darkly. I don’t even get a free drink at the Oxford Bar. I will try to give Rebus a Porsche next.
Have you ever been in trouble with real criminals?
There is no “Mr Big” in Edinburgh . Cafferty is an amalgamation of Glaswegian criminals. Oh there is one, but he lives overseas. Sean Connery. I have had a death threat, but there’s more competition from gangsters, criminals who are now writing novels. I need to give them good reviews. I can’t be anonymous anymore and go into bars and listen to conversations in rough places.
Will Rebus and Siobhan get it together? I think they should.
They never will. Three reasons: he’s much older than her; it would be terrible for their working relationship, a terrible morning after; and it would be an awful experience, especially for her. They are destined to be like a lot of cops – no social life and work becomes their lover, in effect.
Are people overseas interested in the politics of Scotland? Here in England, we may be, but overseas?
We’re not in England. (Good correction by IR as Hay is over the border in Wales!)
I’ve seen bus loads of tourists visiting Edinburgh but they don’t see the real Edinburgh.
Edinburgh was in thrall to Jean Brodie, whereas Glasgow had an explosion through writing. Some of us in Edinburgh wanted to do the same for contemporary Edinburgh. Then it became showing Scotland to the world. I was surprised when it was translated for overseas. Scots politics in not interesting to an outsider; or the Scots themselves! It’s interesting that politicians read Rebus. They are the only crime novels in the parliament. I will keep writing them to keep things in the public eye.
Fleshmarket Close came about because an asylum seeker was killed in Glasgow. At the time the Scottish parliament was debating the need for immigration. I thought “what if?” Then a stage further – how do I feel about it? How would Rebus feel about such things? Children of all ages and abilities were being taught together, it was like being in a prison. Soon after the book was published, legislation was changed and the way children at Dungable were being taught changed.
I can’t separate the story from the character. I ask how Rebus would react to a story in the papers. I work to change Rebus’s mind. I’m starting to write the next novel in August/September; it will be about G8. Jam for me!
The genre is taken more seriously in France?
Yes. They retained pulp writers that went out of print in the US. Simenon as well, although he was Belgian, he was a good influence – real cops. Then Creasey developed this further. We don’t take it so seriously, possibly to pass time on a train, a puzzle. You can now do crime fiction at university but only recently. We are starting. People like Kate Atkinson, Martin Amis and Julian Barnes writing crime is good for the genre.
What was the original idea for Rebus?
I don’t know the idea. I was sitting by the fire one night in my bed sit, thinking about noughts and crosses, puzzles, sending picture puzzles (rebuses). Then I thought about Jekyll and Hyde and a pun and the idea for the character came over a couple of weeks. I didn’t read crime fiction then. I started reading crime fiction as I couldn’t see X certificate film like The Godfather and Clockwork Orange, but there was nothing to stop me taking the book out of the library. Knots and Crosses was published and put in the crime fiction category, so I read P D James and Colin Dexter. My dad read thrillers, James Bond and crime novels. I wanted to write books my dad would read.
Is Black and Blue you favourite book?
It probably still is as it was the first book when everything clicked into place. I’d served my apprenticeship. It won the Gold Dagger. It was the first inkling I could make a success of this.
What about Fettes, Merchiston?
I call it “writers’ block”. I moved to Merchiston a year ago, then six months ago there was a murder there for the first time in 60 years. Fettes is for someone like Tony Blair. Paul Johnston told me he had the best fun ever when the first thing he did in his first book was to blow up Fettes.
Proceedings were then closed, presentations made (the ubiquitous long stemmed white roses) and a book signing session followed.
(Note: Paul Johnston’s first book was “The Body Politic” which won the CWA John Creasey Award for best first novel for 1997. Fettes College is a leading independent Boarding and Day School in Edinburgh . Amongst its alumni are Tony Blair and Paul Johnston, but Paul Johnston was four years behind Blair and in a different house.)
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