Scottish Blog

Ian Rankin is a popular Scottish novelist, best known for his Inspector Rebus stories.

Ian Rankin was born on the 28th of April 1980, in Cardenden, Fife, Scotland. Ian Ranking attended Beath High School in Cowdenbeath. After graduating he continued his education at Edinburgh University. His auto-biography claims that after graduating, Ian Ranking relocated to London for four years, followed by six years in France. During this time, and before he could afford to become a full time novelist, Ian Rankin is said to have held a number of unrelated jobs. These included a hi-fi journalist, a punk musician, a alcohol researcher and a grape picker. Currently he resides in Edinburgh.

Ian Rankin did not originally intend to be a crime fiction writer. He aimed at a more mainstream audience, apparently in keeping with the themes of Robert Louis Stevenson and Muriel Spark. He is said to have been slightly disturbed by the initial classification of his books as crime novels. He was later reassured and even encouraged by one of his tutors to keep writing in the theme.

The Inspector Rebus novels which Ian Rankin published are predominantly set in Edinburgh, this combined with their distinct writing style has lent them to becoming a staple of the Tartan Noir style of writing.