He’s not a real cop.. he’s only filling in
Author on how a sandwich boss got into his crime stories
Jenny Morrison
Crime writer Ian Rankin nkin has revealed there will soon be more real people ople in his books than fictitious tious ones.
The author said he nameded one of the recurring charactersers in his Rebus detective novels after a real-life sandwich store tycoon.oon.
The bestsell ing authorr has unmasked Subway boss Haj Atwal as the holder of the real name he used for the scene- of- crime manager in his latest books.s.
He also revealed another regularegular character, Detective Constable Christine Esson, is named after a business networking boss.
Both entrepreneurs paid for the honour of being immortalised in his novels at charity auctions and appear in his latest mystery, A Song For The Dark Times.
Rankin said: “My scene of crimes officer, Haj Atwal, who has been in the last two or three books, is a real business person who has paid to be in the books.
“Christine Esson, who has been in the last few books, is also a real person. She is a businesswoman in Edinburgh who paid a charity a long time ago to be in the books.
“I made her a detect ive constable. She’s been in the last four or five books. Soon there will be no fictional characters in my books at all – just a complete raft of real people who have paid for the privilege of being in them.”
Atwal is a Subway franchisee who became a regional development agent for the US-based sandwich company.
Esson is the chief executive officer of the Scottish Business Network.
They are not the first characters in Rankin’s novels to have their names bought at auctions but they are the only such characters who appear in more than one of his books. American crime writers Lee Child and Karin Slaughter also had their names appear in a Rebus novel after bidding for the right at a book festival in Florida two years ago.
Rankin said: “Lee Child bid but he was bidding against Karin Slaughter, another crime writer, and both bid the same amount.
“The organiser said to me, ‘ Will you put them both in?’ I said, ‘Oh, this is going to be a pain. You can’t have police constable Lee Child and detective sergeant Karin Slaughter. Everyone’s going to go, ‘ That’s ridiculous.’ I thought, ‘ Well, they are going to have to appear as themselves.’
“So there’s a scene in the book where Rebus has a Lee ChiChildld book on his shelf.
“Then Siobhan Clarke is heading off to a big book event at one point – this is pre-lockdown obviously – to go to see Lee Child and Karin Slaughter.”
Early in his writing career, Rankin was duped into adding two character names into his novel A Question Of Blood.
At a charity auction a man who gave his name as Peacock Johnson bid £650 to have his name and that of his “friend” Evil Bob included.
Rankin later discovered the names, email and website had been set up by Belle and Sebastian bass player Stuar t David, a practical joker who made up the entire persona.
TOP RANK Books with auction names