Ian Rankin

Quote of the day -- Ian Rankin:  Her eyes were small, as were nose and mouth. He tried not to think of a hamster, but then she twitched her nose and the picture was complete.

Ian Rankin, born in the Kingdom Of Fife, has been a best-selling author of crime fiction since 1987, primarily but not exclusively thanks to his novels about Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh police, but somehow he managed to avoid my radar until relatively recently.

John Rebus is a great music lover and he first swam into my ken through a Rory Gallagher forum i belong to -- he's a Rory fan (preferably on vinyl!) and someone on the forum quoted a relevant quote.  And so i began reading Rankin, and started with the final volume in the Rebus series, "Exit Music."

He has very quickly become one of my favourite writers.

Now i can't really say that i'm an aficionado of detective novels.  There are many that i like, and i love Sherlock Holmes (particularly in the filmed versions starring Basil Rathbone).


Plus of course there's Nicolas Freeling, one of my favourite writers of all time, ever, who wrote series about Detective Van der Valk and Detective Henri Castang -- but his work is so sublime that it transcends the genre and is literature rather than a "good read."

But this Ian Rankin dude (www.ianrankin.net) -- he's bloody good!  Now i have to buy all of his books....

But why is the city of Fife the only city in Britain that's allowed to call itself a "kingdom"?