The only time crime pays...
POLICE funding may be a source of frustration for many, but it benefits one section of society: the crime writer.
For it leaves fictional heroes with believable problems, according to bestselling author Ian Rankin.
The creator of John Rebus, the maverick Scottish detective who appears in 22 of his novels, says that because of tight budgets, forces cannot afford huge forensics laboratories such as those shown in US television serials.
It meant, he said, that there was still room for his fictional detective, who often thinks “outside the box”.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, Rankin said: “The technology has changed hugely … but there’s still only an amount of money available to investigate crime. In CSI they’ll happily have this huge lab where you can do anything. In the UK that’s not so true and definitely not in Scotland.”