‘The crime fiction I’m interested in is political’: Ian Rankin on his new novel about the super-rich

The bestselling writer talks about leaving Edinburgh for London in his latest mystery, and what the future holds for Rebus Sir Ian Rankin rarely watches television.

Certainly, there’s no gleaming flatscreen in the corner of the apartment in Edinburgh where he writes, listens to music and constructs elaborate Lego models (all four Beatles, their Yellow Submarine and, once, a 6ft version of the Eiffel Tower).

Did he not see the most recent incarnation of his most famous creation, Detective Inspector John Rebus, this time played by Richard Rankin (no relation), in the wake of previous performances by Ken Stott and John Hannah? “I did,” he concedes.

“They gave me them on DVD, so I could play them on my computer.” Ah, his computer – it’s had its screen and hard drive replaced, and there are grooves in the keys.

It sits on top of a plain, compact trestle-table desk he bought on London’s Charing Cross Road in 1987 and lugged back to his Tottenham flat on the tube; both have accompanied him from London to rural Dordogne, in southwest France, where he lived for a few years with his wife, Miranda, in the 1990s, and back to Edinburgh, where the couple and their two sons have been ever since.

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