Ian Rankin & Inspector Rebus

by Craig Cabell

EARLY AND SELECTED INSPECTOR REBUS SHORT STORIES

  ‘Talk Show’ in Winter Crimes 23 (Macmillan, 1991).

  ‘In the Frame’ in Winter’s Crimes 24 (Macmillan, 1992), hardback with dustwrapper.

  ‘Trip Trap’ in 1st Culprit (Chatto & Windus, 1992), p/back with pictorial dustwrapper.

  ‘Well Shot’ in 2nd Culprit (Chatto & Windus, 1993), p/back with pictorial dustwrapper.

  ‘Castle Dangerous’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, October 1993.

  ‘Facing the Shot’ in Midwinter Mysteries 4 (Little, Brown, 1994), edited by Hilary Hale.

  ‘Window of Opportunity’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, December 1995.

  ‘Get Shortie’ in Crimewave 2 (TTA Press, 1999), p/back with gun on playing card cover.

  ‘Acid Test’ in EDiT, The University of Edinburgh Magazine, Issue 15, Winter 1998/99.

  Note: ‘Acid Test’ is especially significant because it was the first Rebus to be illustrated by the photographs of Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie. When Rankin saw the pictures, he requested that all his book jacket photos be supplied by the duo.

  ‘Acid Test’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, August 1999.

  ‘Saint Nicked’ in Radio Times two-issue serialisation (21 December 2002 – 31 January 2003 and 4 – 10 January 2003), two-part short story with colour illustrations. Sets exist with each issue flat signed by Rankin at top of story.

  Note:‘Saint Nicked’ was first published in one volume in The Best British Mysteries Vol. 1 (2004).

  ‘Fieldwork’ in Ox-Tales Earth (Profile, 2009), short-short story the first in a set of four anthologies for Oxfam (Rankin only appearing in book one). The story also appeared in The Guardian on Monday 6 July 2009.

  THE INSPECTOR REBUS SERIES – LIMITED EDITIONS

  The Hanging Garden (Scorpion Press, 1998).

  Beggars Banquet (Scorpion Press, 2002).

  A Question of Blood (Scorpion Press, 2003).

  Fleshmarket Close (Scorpion Press, 2004).

  The Naming of the Dead (Scorpion Press, 2006).

  Note: Approximately 100 copies of each of the Scorpion Press books were printed in quarter leather-bound editions with 16 lettered copies as part of each individual run. The first two copies of each title went to Rankin.

  Knots and Crosses (Orion, 2007), signed and numbered limited edition of 1,500 with special introduction, previously unreleased ‘deleted material’ and pictorial endpapers. Matchbox striker coloured spine and boards, released in slip case without dustwrapper. Note: This ‘Collectors’ Edition’ was also released unsigned without limitation.

  THE INSPECTOR REBUS SERIES – PRESS AND PUBLISHER’S SPECIAL HARDBACK EDITIONS

  A more detailed snapshot of the desirable publicity/press copies of the later Rebus books, so inserts can be appreciated more fully.

  A Question of Blood (Orion, 2003), first hardback edition with black endpapers and £17.99 on dustwrapper. Includes original press release (with three-tone blue sidebar down left-hand side), multicoloured card invitation to book launch (most copies flat-signed with ‘Slainte’, doodles of face or noughts and crosses doodle).

  Fleshmarket Close (Orion, 2004), first hardback edition with green endpapers and £17.99 on dustwrapper. Includes original press release (with three-tone blue sidebar down left-hand side), publishers’ compliment slip, invitation to book launch in unaddressed white envelope, promotional double-sided pictorial postcard ‘Ian Rankin at your fingertips’, and some copies with additional longer promo postcard showing a photo of Rankin and map of Fleshmarket Close. Note: the most desirable copies of these early issues have book, launch invite, and Fleshmarket Close postcard all flat-signed.

  The Naming of the Dead (Orion, 2006), first hardback edition with bright yellow endpapers and standard dustwrapper. Note: this issue was printed in very limited quantities by the publisher to see if yellow endpapers actually worked; with the bright blue of the dustwrapper it definitely didn’t and no more copies were printed!

  EARLY UNCOLLECTED SHORT STORIES

  Ian Rankin’s early short stories are highly collectable. A guide to the stories released in the 1980s follows

  ‘An Afternoon’ in New Writing Scotland Volume 2 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1984), p/back.

  ‘Voyeurism’ in New Writing Scotland Volume 3 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1985), p/back.

  ‘Colony’ in New Writing Scotland Volume 4 (Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1986), p/back.

  ‘Scarab’ in Scottish Short Stories 1986 (Collins, 1986). Note:‘Scarab’was re-issued with author’s notes and essay in Working Words, edited byValerie Thornton (Hodder & Stoughton, 1995).

  ‘Territory’ in Scottish Short Stories 1987 (Collins, 1987).

  ‘The Wall’ in P.E.N. New Fiction Volume 2 (Quartet, 1987), edited by Allan Massie.

  ‘My Shopping Day’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, November 1988.

  MISCELLANEOUS SHORT STORIES

  ‘Marked for Death’ in Constable New Crimes 1 (Constable, 1992).

  ‘Video Nasty’ in Constable New Crimes 2 (Constable, 1993).

  ‘A Deep Hole’ in London Noir (Serpent’s Tail, 1994), edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

  ‘Someone Got to Eddie’ in 3rd Culprit (Chatto & Windus, 1994).

  ‘Adventures in Babysitting’ in No Alibi (Ringpull, 1995).

  ‘Natural Selection’ in Fresh Blood (The Do Not Press, 1996), edited by Mike Ripley and Maxim Jakubowski.

  ‘Principles in Accounts’ in The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories Volume 5 (Carroll & Graf, 1996).

  ‘The Wider Scheme’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, August 1996.

  ‘Unknown Pleasures in Mean Time (Do Not Press, 1998).

  ‘The Serpent’s Back’ in Midwinter Mysteries (Little, Brown, 1995), edited by Hilary Hale.

  ‘Herbert in Motion’ in Perfect Criminal (Severn House, 1996), edited by Martin Edwards.

  ‘The Hanged Man’ in Ellery Queen Magazine, September/October 1999.

  ‘Tell Me Who to Kill’ in Mysterious Pleasures, celebrating 50 years of the Crime Writers’ Association (Little, Brown, 2003).

  ‘Driven’ in Crimespotting – An Edinburgh Crime Collection (Polygon, 2009). Hardback in dustwrapper.

  ‘Is This a Dagger’ The Times – Saturday Review, Saturday 18 July 2009.

  OTHER NOVELS

  The Flood (Polygon, 1986).

  The Flood (Orion, 2005), new re-edited version in red/black dustwrapper and special

  Introduction by Rankin.

  The Flood (Orion, 2005), uncorrected Bound Proof with black and white photo of Rankin to cover and shorter version of new Introduction.

  The Flood (Ulverscroft Large Print Books), Charnwood Large Print.

  Watchman (The Bodley Head, 1988).

  Watchman (Orion, 2003), new re-edited version with black and white dustwrapper and special Introduction by Rankin.

  Watchman (Orion, 2003), uncorrected Bound Proof, with same cover as re-issue UK hardback.

  Watchman (Orion, 2003), proof of paperback edition of the UK re-issue, colour photo of author on cover, plus book title.

  Westwind (Barrie & Jenkins, 1990), with white endpapers and £11.95 on dustwrapper (some copies with distributor’s review label on ffep).

  Westwind (Barrie & Jenkins, 1990), uncorrected proof p/back.

  Doors Open (Orion, 2008), £18.99 on dustwrapper. Note: Doors Open was originally released in a shorter format in the New York Times Magazine, 15 issues from 13 May 2007 to 19 August 2007 and is mentioned here specifically because the story is slightly different.

  A Cool Head (Orion, 2009), ‘Quick Reads’ paperback original novella, £1.99 on back cover.

  The Complaints (Orion, 2009), uncorrected manuscript proof with colour publicity notes and colour card cover.

  The Complaints (Orion, 2009), £18.99 on dustwrapper.

  NON-INSPECTOR REBUS SERIES – LIMITED EDITIONS

  Adventures in Babysitting (Scorpion Press, 1995), Both limited numbered ed
ition and lettered edition exists (see notes on Scorpion Press edition under ‘The Inspector Rebus Series – Limited Edition’).

  Herbert in Motion (Revolver, 1997), includes three other short stories, numbered of 250 copies in green card covers and Edinburgh Castle photograph affixed to front. 64 pages long.

  Doors Open (New York Times Magazine, 15 issues from 13 May 2007 to 19 August 2007). This is an earlier, shortened version of the final hardback novel.

  Doors Open (Scorpion Press, 2008), first 80 numbered copies/16 specially bound copies with an appreciation by Denise Mina.

  GRAPHIC NOVELS

  Dark Entries (Titan, 2009), advanced reading proof copy in card wrap. Note: this is essentially a DC USA review proof. However, a couple of copies were sent across to Titan for in-house purposes.

  Dark Entries (Titan, 2009), with Werther Dell’Edera in colour pictorial boards (some copies shrinkwrapped).

  NON-FICTION CONTRIBUTIONS

  Studio Life (Pavilion, 2008), Jack Vettriano. Foreword by Ian Rankin, hardback with dustwrapper, some copies with 8x6 promotional print. Note: copies signed by Vettriano and Rankin do exist, normally signed separately at different venues.

  IAN RANKIN WRITING AS JACK HARVEY

  Witch Hunt (Headline, 1993).

  Bleeding Hearts (Headline, 1994).

  Blood Hunt (Headline, 1995).

  Blood Hunt (Headline, 1995), uncorrected proof in blue covers with black border to top and bottom of cover.

  The Jack Harvey Novels (Orion, 2000), omnibus edition, with complete number line on copyright page.

  Witch Hunt (Chivers Press Ltd, 2002), large print edition. Important note: I have spoken to Rankin and to editors/publicity people at Hodder/Headline, and it was suggested that between 1,000 and 3,000 copies of the first UK edition Jack Harvey novels exist, which does not justify inflated prices on the collector’s market – be warned.

  SELECTED MISCELLANEOUS WORKS

  The Scottish Novel Since the Seventies, compiled by G Wallace and R Stevenson (Edinburgh University Press, 1993), includes Rankin’s essay ‘The Deliberate Cunning of Muriel Spark’.

  Missing Persons: A Crime Writer’s Association Anthology (Constable 1998), edited by Martin Edwards, foreword by Ian Rankin.

  Ian Rankin Presents Criminal Minded (Canongate, 2000), first issue p/back, Rankin provides Introduction to short stories by Andrew Vachss, Anthony Bourdain, Jon A Jackson, Douglas E Winter and Jim Sallis. Small pocket-sized edition with £1 cover price on white card pictorial wrapper.

  Thirtieth Anniversary of the Scottish Publishers Association: A Celebration (Scottish Publishers Association, 2004), features Rankin contribution.

  One City (Polygon, 2005), p/back only, written by Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin and Irvine Welsh and with an Introduction by J K Rowling. Note: copies exist multi-signed by contributors.

  Stranded byVal McDermid (Flambard Press, 2005), p/back short story anthology with foreword by Ian Rankin.

  Rebus (specially produced for The Scotsman by Orion, 2007), ‘Exclusive Souvenir Paperback celebrating 20 years of Inspector Rebus’, with short introduction edited from Beggars Banquet and short stories ‘Trip Trap’, ‘Playback’ and ‘The Dean Curse’, plus segment (intro plus Chapter One) from Naming of the Dead. With pictorial card cover.

  Rebus’s Favourite, The Deuchars Guide to Edinburgh Pubs (Orion, 2007), p/back only, with foreword by Ian Rankin.

  Poems of Robert Burns (Penguin Classics, 2008), hardback, issued without wrapper, blue pictorial boards. Poems selected by Ian Rankin with special introduction.

  Dads – A Celebration of Fatherhood from Britain’s Finest and Funniest (Ebury, 2008). Edited by Sarah Brown and Gill McNeil

  ANNEX D

  IAN RANKIN: THE OXFORD BAR INTERVIEW

  The following piece is a bit of fun cobbled together from various interviews I have undertaken with Ian Rankin in both Edinburgh and London. I’ve set the piece around my own rhetorical discussion concerning the possible burning of the original manuscript of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, a subject both Rankin and I have discussed. However, we do – more often than not – wander into talking about Stevenson’s novella in a more general way every time we meet, and in connection to the Rebus novels too.

  One interview starts with me stating that we weren’t going to talk about Stevenson this time and it took us less than five minutes to do so.

  Stevenson was a fascinating man and one of strong interest for Rankin and myself. The fact that Rankin’s first two Rebus novels have much to thank Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for, should be justification enough for the following piece of self-indulgence from us two literary enthusiasts and, of course, the accidental additional insight it gives into the background of Detective Inspector John Rebus.

  A CASE OF JEKYLL AND HYDE

  with Ian Rankin

  ‘You aim high, and you take longer over your work; and it will not be so successful as if you had aimed low and rushed it.’

  Robert Louis Stevenson in a letter to writer and critic Edmund Gosse three days before the publication of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

  Pedestrians walk in hunched obscurity behind upturned coat collars and thick woollen scarves. I’m in Edinburgh’s Old Town, a location quaint in the daytime, gothically uneasy at night, so I am not intending to hang around in the dark for long. I have an interesting trip across town to make: from Castlehill, down steep North Bank Street and across Princes Street Gardens, then up into the New Town, along George Street, down Castle Street and finally left into Young Street to the Oxford Bar. It’s a twisting and turning, down and up walk, but at least it keeps the circulation going in the cold!

  The Oxford Bar was the now famous pub of fictional Detective Inspector John Rebus, and where I was to interview his creator, one of Scotland’s most famous modern-day writers, Ian Rankin. But we weren’t just interested in talking about John Rebus, we wanted to discuss another subject of common interest: the writing – and burning – of the original manuscript of Robert Louis Stevenson’s masterpiece Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

  The book is of interest for many different reasons. One thing we both agree on is the idea that the original manuscript was set in Edinburgh, not London (the main location in the published book). But there was something else that fascinated me: perhaps the original manuscript of Jekyll and Hyde alluded to something Stevenson himself saw, heard – witnessed – when he walked around Edinburgh’s Old Town during his university days, or rather, nights. At that time Stevenson was known as ‘the man in the velvet jacket’ by certain women of the night and, to my mind, it was quite possible that the burning of the original manuscript of Jekyll and Hyde was for a more sinister reason than Louis’s wife claiming that he missed his own story’s allegory.

  Could the original story have implicated Stevenson in a real-life murder case, which has been shrouded in secrecy since Victorian times? Hm, yes, one’s imagination can easily run away with itself, so lots to talk about, and I need the level head of Ian Rankin to put me straight on such matters.

  As I walk through the Edinburgh streets, a description of London from Jekyll and Hyde comes to me and I marvel at how perfect the description is of Edinburgh all these years later, ‘Round the corner from the by-street there was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate, and it into flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men: map engravers, architects, shady lawyers, and agents of obscure enterprises.’

  I ponder the ‘agents of obscure enterprise’. As a young writer Stevenson co-wrote a play entitled Deacon Brodie. Brodie was a gentleman cabinet-maker by day but had a much darker side to him at night… there was certainly so much hiding in Stevenson’s story.

  It is suggested that Stevenson based Jekyll and Hyde upon Brodie’s dual personality, perhaps a natural progression of his original play? Well I, and possibly Rankin, believe just a little more. ‘One h
ouse… second from the corner, was still occupied… and at the door of this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was now plunged in darkness except for the fan-light, Mr Utterson stopped and knocked. A well dressed elderly servant opened the door.’

  To this day, Edinburgh’s Old Town is a mixture of wealth and poverty: a rickety old vinyl music shop stood derelict, while in the flat above it a large chandelier lit the room and ostensibly the street below. Maybe one of gangster ‘Big Ger’ Cafferty’s highly paid cronies owned the flat, I muse to myself.

  I cross Princes Street Gardens, glancing across at Waverley station as I do so. ‘… for a moment, the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths… which had never been extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful reinvasion of darkness… like a district of some city in a nightmare.’

  I make my way across to the New Town. Fellow pedestrians pass, to and fro, keeping their personal affairs hidden deep inside their thick winter coats. That is Edinburgh for you, private – shy – feelings locked away; but there is nothing wrong with that. I kind of envy it.

  A coldness, like the faint touch of light rain, chills my bones as I make my way across Princes Street, up into George Street and onwards to the Oxford Bar, a stone’s throw away from Stevenson’s former house at Heriot Row.

  As I draw up‘…before the address indicated, the fog lifted a little and showed… a dingy street, a gin palace, a low French eating-house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and two penny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and many women of many nationalities passing out, key in hand… to have a glass; and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from his black surroundings. This was the home of Henry Jekyll’s favourite…’