LAST WRITES
IAN RANKIN PREDICTS DEATH OF CRIME NOVEL Rebus creator claims people want feelgood books in a troubled era
Rebus creator Ian Rankin has forecast the death of the crime novel.
The author, whose 21 books have sold millions worldwide, says bad news is killing it off. The rise of Donald Trump, terrorist attacks and mass shootings have left people yearning for “kind and gentle” books, he claims. Rankin is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his literary creation on a tour. But he says the bleakness of events worldwide is changing readers’ habits. The 57-year- old said: “The world seems so crazy and irrational that many novelists have difficulty trying to shape it into a coherent narrative. “Fiction must be credible, the real world right now feels to me like the opposite of
Toby McDonald
that. People crave normality and stories of kind people helping each other.”
He added: “I think this may happen – a move away from serial killers and bleak dystopian crime fiction towards something with a more comforting message.
“Maybe good will be seen to triumph and ordinary people wi l l overcome cr i s e s in psychological crime novels.”
Rankin has sold 30million books and Rebus novels have been t ranslated into 22 languages in three decades.
They have been made into two TV series starring John Hannah and Ken Stott.
His 22nd novel about the Edinburgh detective will be published in autumn 2018. And Rankin says he is too set in his ways to give up on Rebus. He said: “I’m too much of a cynic. Maybe my books will become wilder and more chaotic.
“When I write, I feel like a child, having adventures with my imaginary friends in a universe where I play God.”
Crime buyer for Waterstones Joseph Knobbs said: “Some readers w i l l go looking for that comfort book but The Jinx and Making a Mu r d e r e r suggest people are still enraptured by tales of crime.”