The Rebus books by Ian Rankin rank as my favourite examples of ‘tartan noir’. John Rebus, is a dishevelled cynical detective who enjoys hanging out in a small bar in the New Town, called the Oxford Bar. The central section of the New Town in Edinburgh has three main thoroughfares running east to west – the well known Princes Street to the south, the broad George Street in the middle and then Queen Street marks the northern boundary along the Queen Street Gardens. The Oxford Bar is in Young Street, a narrow street between George and Queen.
When I had previously been in Edinburgh, I had risen a glass of IPA in Rebus’ honour in the Royal Oak on Infirmary Street in the Old Town and just around the corner from the morgue where Rebus seems to spend a bit of time. The Royal Oak, as well as being one of John Rebus’s watering holes, was also the meeting point for a guided walk around Edinburgh by one of Rebus’ biggest fans, Colin Brown.
The Rebus Books
When A Heart Full of Headstones is published later this year, it will be the 25th novel in Ian Rankin’s John Rebus series. This is in addition to a number of short stories, many of which are published in the single volume The Beat Goes On. We first meet Rebus in 1987 in the novel Knots and Crosses. When Rankin wrote Knots and Crosses he didn’t set out to write a genre detective novel but had thought of it as being a modern take on Dr Jeckyl and Mister Hyde. In one interview, Rankin described how just before writing his first Rebus book, he had given his father a novel by James Kelman and was shocked when his father described the Kelman as not being written in English and not having a story. Certainly the language of Rebus, being set in Edinburgh, is not that of Kelman’s dense Glaswegian. Readers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of Kelman and can read a little about him here.
In the first books, we learn that Rebus has been traumatised by his time as a young soldier trying out for the SAS, that he is divorced with a daughter and that he has a large collection of rock music on vinyl. Cultural musical references abound throughout the series and the title of the seventh book shares its name with a Rolling Stones album Let it Bleed. Rebus solves his cases through unorthodox methods and often at odds with his superiors. His colleague Siobhan is a constant and is promoted throughout the series from Detective Constable to Detective Inspector while Rebus himself retired a couple of novels back but still can’t keep his nose out of the seamer sides of Edinburgh.
The Oxford Bar
It was late on a cold December afternoon when I went to the Oxford Bar. The morning had started off with a bus ride from Leith, where I had found the house where my grandmother had grown up, followed by a walk around Calton Hill and then a wander through the Old Town including Greyfriars Kirkyard. By time we had circled the castle and ended up back in the New Town, I was ready for a drink.
The bar itself is small, not more than a little nook that could seat seven or eight drinkers but once drinks were ordered, up a couple of steps was a cosy room with fire. There weren’t a lot of drinkers that afternoon and most looked to be locals – it was definitely not tourist season being the 27th of December. I ordered an IPA and Laphroaig chaser (Laphroaig is my favourite of all whiskies and I only started drinking it when I first read Rebus). As you can see from the above photograph, I think I certainly looked like a tourist and I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or slightly miffed when the barmaid handed me my change, she also gave me a couple of Oxford Bar bookmarks. Of course, I was grateful and treasure these bookmarks of my time searching Edinburgh for John Rebus.
