Trivia / Rebus

• Accent Depundent: Knots and Crosses, the first novel in the series, is intended as a pun on "noughts and crosses". This works in Scottish accents, which have undergone the cot-caught merger making "knot" and "nought" homophones, but not in the rest of Great Britain, which does not have this vowel merger.
• Disowned Adaptation: Rankin didn't like the first attempt at a TV adaptation, as he felt that John Hannah was wrong for the part. He wasn't much happier with the retooled version starring Ken Stott either, and as a result he stopped writing new Rebus novels altogether until the production company's option on them expired.
• Similarly Named Works: Rankin has named several of his novels after music albums and songs, among them Let it Bleed, Black and Blue and Beggars Banquet (after the Rolling Stones albums), Dead Souls (after the Joy Division song) and Exit Music (after the Radiohead song). This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as musical references are concerned.
• What Could Have Been: Peter Mullan was originally considered to play Rebus in the TV adaptation; when that fell through, John Hannah (already on board as an executive producer) stepped in to play the role.
• Word of God: Ian Rankin has had a lot of interesting things to say about the novels over the years; his thoughts can often be found in the introductions to omnibus editions and later publications of the earlier novels.
  • For the first novel, Knots and Crosses, he has said that his intention was not to write a crime novel but to write a Setting Update of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
  • He took the decision to move Rebus down to London for Tooth and Nail because he was living in London at the time of writing and not enjoying it, so "I brought Rebus to London so he could suffer, too".
  • The beginning of Black and Blue was inspired by a story he was told about a friend's brother who worked in the oil industry and was subject to a violent attack while visiting Edinburgh during a period of leave from the rigs.
  • The wartime massacre that is part of the back-story of The Hanging Garden was inspired by a visit he made to Oradour-sur-Glane while he was living in France.
  • A Heart Full of Headstones, which deals in part with investigations into police corruption and domestic violence (the perpetrator of the latter being a police officer who was involved in the former) was inspired by several news stories of police violence and misbehaviour, notably the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard.