Ian Rankin
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Ian Rankin (born April 28, 1960, in Cardenden, Fife, Scotland) is one of the best-selling crime writers in the United Kingdom, and one of the world's foremost writers in the genre. He is most recognised as the writer of the Inspector Rebus novels.
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[edit] Background
Rankin's standard bio states that before becoming a full-time novelist he worked as grape-picker, swineherd, taxman, alcohol researcher, hi-fi journalist, college secretary and punk musician.[1] Interestingly, this CV omits a stint as Literature tutor at Edinburgh University. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh he moved to London for four years and then rural France for six while he developed his career as a novelist. He attended Beath High School, Cowdenbeath which has recently been rebuilt.
He lives in Edinburgh with his wife Miranda and their two sons Jack and Kit. Kit suffers from a rare disorder known as Angelman Syndrome. Perhaps surprisingly, he has stated on a number of occasions that one of his favourite novels is Rivals by Jilly Cooper.
[edit] Writing
Rankin did not set out to be a crime writer. He thought his first novels Knots and Crosses and Hide and Seek were mainstream books, more in keeping with the Scottish traditions of Robert Louis Stevenson and even Muriel Spark (the subject of Rankin's uncompleted Ph.D. thesis), and was disconcerted by their classification as genre fiction. He was reassured by Scottish novelist, Allan Massie, who tutored Rankin while Massie was writer-in-residence at Edinburgh University: who would want to be a dry academic writer when "they could be John Buchan?"
Rankin's Inspector Rebus novels are mainly set in Edinburgh, and are major contributions to the Tartan Noir genre. Four of the novels were televised on ITV, starring John Hannah. In early 2006 Ken Stott took over in the part of Rebus, and was hailed by many fans as an ideal fit for the character.
Rankin has confirmed that after he writes his last Rebus novel in November 2006, he will start work on a five or six issue run on the comic book Hellblazer, although the story may be turned into a standalone graphic novel instead. He talked about this at length with Simon Mayo on Radio Five Live.
[edit] Documentaries
He is a regular contributor to the BBC Two arts programme Newsnight Review. His 3-part documentary series on the subject of evil was broadcast on Channel 4 in December 2002. In 2005 he presented a 30min documentary on BBC4 called 'Rankin on the Staircase', in which he investigated the relationship between real-life cases and crime fiction, loosely based on the Michael Peterson murder case as documented in Jean-Xavier Lestrade's documentary series 'Death on the Staircase'. The same year he collaborated with folk musician Jackie Leven on the album Jackie Leven Said.
[edit] Awards
Rankin has been elected as a Hawthornden Fellow and won the Chandler-Fulbright Award. He has also won two Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Dagger prizes for short stories and in 1997 the CWA Macallan Gold Dagger for Fiction for Black and Blue (which was also short-listed for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for best novel). He won the Edgar in 2004 for Resurrection Men. In 2005 he was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger to mark a lifetime's achievement in crime writing. He has honorary doctorates from the University of Abertay Dundee, from the University of St Andrews and, in 2005, from the University of Hull. In June 2002 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in the Golden Jubilee Queen's Birthday Honours List for services to literature.
[edit] Bibliography
To date he has written at least 21 novels, including:
[edit] Inspector Rebus novels
- Knots and Crosses (1987)
- Hide and Seek (1991)
- Tooth and Nail (1992 - originally published as Wolfman)
- Strip Jack (1992)
- The Black Book (1993)
- Mortal Causes (1994)
- Let it Bleed (1996)
- 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)
[edit] Jack Harvey novels
- Witch Hunt (1993)
- Bleeding Hearts (1994)
- Blood Hunt (1995)
[edit] Other books
- The Flood (1986 re-released with new introduction in 2005)
- Death is not the End (1998) (novella)
- A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992) (short stories)
- Beggars Banquet (2002) — short stories (collection featuring both Rebus and other short stories, and Death is not the End)
- Watchman (1988, reissued with a new introduction in 2004)
- Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey (2005)
- Doors Open - a serial novel published in the New York Times
- One Book, One City
[edit] Recordings
- Jackie Leven Said (Cooking vinyl, 2005), with Jackie Leven
