THE CRIME DESK
...Or where Ian Rankin hones his Rebus tales
IT has been party to countless gruesome murders.
But despite an involvement in shootings, stabbings, beatings and poisonings, this is a crime scene Ian Rankin never wants to leave.
The author has revealed his extraordinary attachment to the ‘lucky desk’ where he always finishes his novels.
For the past 30 years, the creator of Inspector John Rebus has puzzled out convoluted plots at the same simple trestle-table – a ‘big slab of wood’ the author has taken with him from London to France and then to Edinburgh.
Now, the 58-year-old – who has sold 30 million books and is worth an estimated £10 million – has spoken out about its role in making him one of the country’s most successful authors. The desk started out as a dining table, bought when he married his wife Miranda Harvey in 1986.
From first sitting at it with a typewriter, then an Amstrad home computer and finally a laptop, every killing has been spelt out letter by letter at this same desk. Rankin said: ‘My writing desk I bought in Tottenham Court Road in 1986, when I got married.
‘We schlepped it from Tottenham Court Road back up to Tottenham, where we had a flat, on the Underground. It is just one big slab of wood and then two trestles, and it has gone with me from London to France and back to Edinburgh.
‘It has been in several houses in Edinburgh and it is my lucky desk. I would never get rid of it. I would never consider not having that desk in my home.’
Rankin – whose 22nd Rebus novel, In a House of Lies, is topping the bestseller lists – said that the desk is still an integral part of his working routine.
The father of two writes the first draft of his novels at a cottage in Cromarty on the Black Isle, Ross-shire, where there is no phone and no mobile coverage, before finishing the final draft at his lucky desk at his home in Edinburgh’s Merchiston area.
Rankin also revealed that he tries to write as quickly as possible.
He said: ‘I like to get in and out – as a reader and as an author. I like to get it written fast and read fast.’
At the start of his career, he wrote two books a year to make ends meet. He said: ‘Novels weren’t very long back then. The first Rebus novel was about 160 pages. I remember thinking at the time, “I can’t ever imagine writing a book over 200 pages”. Now crime novels are routinely 500 to 600 pages.
‘Not mine, mine are getting thinner again. They did get fat for a while but are getting slimmer.
‘Why? I think because I’m always afraid I’m going to drop dead before I finish writing it.’