YMMV / Rebus

• Growing the Beard: Rankin is on record as saying that Strip Jack (the fourth novel) was the point at which he moved Rebus out of a fictionalised Edinburgh and into the real one; a sub-plot in this novel sees a fictional police station being closed down, with the staff (including Rebus) being moved to a Real Life one. This is also the point at which he stopped using The Noun and the Noun for the titles.
• Spiritual Successor: Rebus could be said to be this to Jim Taggart.
• The Woobie: Rebus's daughter Sammy really goes through the wringer. Her parents divorced when she was a child, leading to a strained relationship with her father due to his dedication to his job. As a twelve year-old, she gets kidnapped by a villain with a grudge against her father. As a young adult, she is knocked down by a hit-and-run driver which leaves her in a wheelchair (for a time). In later novels, she and her husband have fertility issues; although they do have a child via IVF, the husband is murdered a couple of years later, leaving Sammy with an uncertain future as a single mother.