History Literature / Rebus

** In ''Tooth and Nail'', Rebus is sent down to London to help track down a serial killer; George Flight, the Metropolitan Police officer in charge of the investigation, is not happy about having an outsider brought in, although they eventually warm to each other.

** Cafferty first appears in ''Tooth and Nail'' and does not become a regular character until ''The Black Book''.

* {{Bookworm}}: Somewhat downplayed with Rebus, who owns a lot of books which he might, some day, get around to reading. This trait of his is occasionally touched on, usually when someone sees the piles of books in his flat.
* CelebrityParadox: Rebus's favourite pub is the Oxford Bar in Edinburgh's New Town. In real life, this establishment -- a favourite of Rankin's -- has a fair bit of Rebus memorabilia on the walls.

* CreatorProvincialism: Like his creator, Rebus is originally from Fife. He sometimes visits said county during the course of his investigations. At one point on such a visit, a young witness to an incident says that one of the perpetrators was wearing a Dunfermline Athletic shirt; it takes Rebus a while to figure out that it actually a Newcastle United shirt, leading him to reflect that only a Fifer would see a black-and-white striped football shirt and automatically assume that the wearer was a Pars fan.

* StealingFromTheTill: Quite a few criminal underlings indulge in this; it never ends well, as their superiors (Cafferty and his various rivals) invariably find out and have them killed, thus sending a message to the other underlings that such behaviour is not tolerated.

* StealingFromTheTill: Quite a few criminal underlings indulge in this; it never ends well, as their superiors (Cafferty and his various rivals) invariably find out and have them killed for this, if only to send a message to the other underlings that such behaviour is not tolerated.

** ''Hide and Seek'' is about Rebus hunting a killer; the last thing the victim said was: "Hide! Hide!". A key plot element concerns Hyde's, a private members' club with a few secrets its members would rather be kept, well, hidden. The title also alludes to ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde''.

** There's also DI Abernethy, a Special Branch officer who appears in more than one novel and manages to rub all of the Edinburgh cops up the wrong way.

** Brian Holmes, Rebus's sidekick in the earlier novels, was of course named after Literature/SherlockHolmes.

* EveryoneHasStandards: In ''The Hanging Garden'', Rebus's car is stolen and used in a hit-and-run; the perpetrator, who did this to frame Rebus, left an empty whisky bottle in the car to make it look like he'd been drinking. Rebus is appalled — but less at tte insinuation that he'd drink and drive, more at the fact that the perp used a cheap supermarket brand of whisky.

* CreatorCameo: Sort of. One of the many bands mentioned in the books is the Dancing Pigs, a short-lived student band that Rankin was a member of. In-universe, they made it to the big time to the point where Rebus owns one of their [=LPs=].
* CreatorProvincialism: Like his creator, Rebus is originally from Fife. He sometimes visits said county during the course of his investigations. At one point on such a visit, a young witness to an incident says that one of the perpetrators was wearing a Dunfermline Athletic shirt; it takes Rebus a while to figure out that the perp was actually wearing a Newcastle United shirt, leading him to reflect that only a Fifer would see someone in a black and white striped football shirt and automatically assume that they were a Pars fan.

** ''A Heart Full of Headstones'' is set at the time of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, specifically in the post-lockdown period, in addition to having been influenced by several news stories of police violence and misbehaviour, such as the 2021 murder of Sarah Everard.

The '''Rebus''' books are a series of crime novels and short stories written by Scottish writer Ian Rankin. They centre on Detective Inspector John Rebus, a cynical veteran policeman and former soldier who is divorced. The stories are mostly set in an Edinburgh several steps removed from what the tourists see -- although the third book, ''Tooth and Nail'', is set in London and other novels sometimes take Rebus to different parts of UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}}.

* TheNicknamer: Rebus, at times. In the earlier novels, he is said to have antagonised his boss, DCS Watson, by referring to him by his nickname ("The Farmer") within earshot.

** The novel also features a literal example of this trope. Everyone wants to pet the friendly stray terrier who appears outside of Cafferty's house. [[spoiler: Eventually, Rebus gives in and adopts him. Brillo, for that is his name, features in subsequent books.]]

** ''Hide and Seek'' is about Rebus hunting a killer; the last thing the victim said was: "Hide! Hide!". The title also alludes to ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde''.
** As well as being named after a Music/RollingStones album ''Black and Blue'' is an example of this as it alludes to bruising — this novel sees Rebus get roughed up more than once — as well as the fact that those colours are (respectively) synonymous with oil (a key plot element as Rebus's investigation in this novel touches on the North Sea oil industry) and the police.

** He also said he wrote the first novel, ''Hide and Seek'', to make it [[AmbiguousSituation deliberately ambiguous]] to the reader as to whether the killer was actually out there (which he was) or if the killer was actually [[TomatoInTheMirror Rebus himself]], although of course the mere existence of the rest of the series means that this is lost on most new readers.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In ''Even Dogs in the Wild'', Ger Cafferty makes it clear to Rebus that his villainy does not extend to [[spoiler: sexually abusing teenage boys in care]], and he feels real guilt about his part in [[spoiler: covering up for a violent abuser.]]

* GoingNative: Siobhan Clarke is English, but is nevertheless a proud Hibernian fan and seems to be in favour of Scottish independence.

** Was Joseph Lintz, an elderly academic who Rebus encounters (and who is later murdered) in ''The Hanging Garden'', a Nazi war criminal in his younger days? The circumstantial evidence says that he may well have been, but we don't know for sure. He admits to having been conscripted into the SS during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, but denies that he was the similarly-named SS officer who led the massacre of around 700 French civilians. His murder [[spoiler: is eventually found to have been a somewhat extreme case of assisted suicide, although whether he chose this course of action due to guilt for his crimes, or he was DrivenToSuicide after being publicly accused of said crimes, is left unstated — he did not clarify this with the pimp who helped him to die, so secret of his past died with him]].

** Siobhan falls victim to this as well, as Fox gets KicedUpstairs to a job she would probably be better at.

** ''Exit Music'' ends with [[spoiler: Cafferty in a coma, with his heart flatlining while Rebus tries to revive him. We are not told if he survives. It's only with his reappearance in ''Standing in Another Man's Grave'' (published five years later) that we learn that he did]].

** The first novel, ''Knots and Crosses'', toys with the notion that ''Rebus himself'' may be the killer — although this may be lost on readers these days, as the existence of twenty-plus subsequent novels is a pretty good indicator that he's not.

** Was Joseph Lintz, an elderly academic who Rebus encounters (and who is later murdered) in ''The Hanging Garden'', a Nazi war criminal in his younger days? The circumstantial evidence says that he may well have been, but we don't know for sure. His murder [[spoiler: is eventually found to have been a somewhat extreme case of assisted suicide, although whether he chose this course of action due to guilt for his crimes, or he was DrivenToSuicide after being accused of said crimes, is left unstated]].

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: Quite a few of the books are this, dealing with Scottish political and social issues ranging from nationalism to illegal immigration to the effects of UsefulNotes/TheTroubles on Scotland. The novels keep in time with real-life events -- ''Set in Darkness'', for example, takes place prior to the re-opening of the Scottish Parliament following the 1997 devolution referendum, while ''The Naming of the Dead'' is set at the time of the 2005 G8 summit. Rebus himself is mostly apolitical - it's sometimes mentioned that he's only ever voted three times in his life (once each for Labour, the Tories and the SNP), although in more recent stories it's revealed that he voted "No" in the 2014 independence referendum.

** ''Hide and Seek'' is about Rebus hunting a killer and the last thing the victim said was: "Hide! Hide!". The title also alludes to ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde''.

* ReligiousBruiser: Todd Goodyear, the uniformed Constable who gets involved in the investigation in ''Exit Music'', spends his downtime preaching on street corners.

* ReligiousBruiser: One of the police officers spends his downtime preaching on street corners.

** This line from ''Saints of the Shadow Bible'' in which Rebus recalls his early days in the police:
--> "You ever see that programme ''[[Series/LifeOnMars2006 Life on Mars]]''? It felt like a documentary."

** After retiring, Rebus takes advantage of a RealLife change to the retirement age to rejoin the police.
** On a lighter note, the roadworks on Edinburgh's Leith Walk have been going on for so long that ''even the characters in the Rebus books'' are complaining about them.