[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rebus_9.jpg]]

The '''Rebus''' books are a series of crime novels and short stories written by Scottish writer Creator/IanRankin. 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}}.

The books have won numerous awards and are credited with playing a key role in establishing the "Tartan Noir" genre of crime stories.

Some of the books were adapted for television (by STV for the Creator/{{ITV}} network) between 2000 and 2007. ''Rebus'' starred Creator/JohnHannah, and later Creator/KenStott, in the title role. Rankin [[DisownedAdaptation wasn't keen on either]], and stopped writing novels featuring Rebus for a time until the production company's option on them expired. In 2020, BBC Scotland produced a short film entitled ''John Rebus: The Lockdown Blues'', in which Creator/BrianCox played the character. A [[Series/Rebus2024 new television adaptation]], produced by the Swedish streaming service Viaplay, started filming in 2023 with ''Series/{{Outlander}}'' star Richard Rankin (no relation) playing Rebus.

Some of the novels have been turned into radio plays for [[Creator/TheBBC Radio Four]], most of which star Ron Donachie.

There have also been two stage plays — ''Rebus: Long Shadows'', which premiered in 2018 starring Charles Lawson, and ''Rebus: A Game Called Malice'' which debuted in 2023 with John Michie in the lead role.

As of 2022, there are 24 novels in the series, as well as three collections of short stories and three other novels by Rankin which, although they don't feature Rebus as a character, are set in the same universe.

[[folder:The Rebus Books]]

!!Novels
* ''Knots and Crosses'' (1987)
* ''Hide and Seek'' (1991)
* ''Tooth and Nail'' (1992) - original title ''Wolfman''
* ''Strip Jack'' (1992)
* ''The Black Book'' (1993)
* ''Mortal Causes'' (1994)
* ''Let It Bleed'' (1996)
* ''Black and Blue'' (1997) - won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award
* ''The Hanging Garden'' (1998)
* ''Dead Souls'' (1999)
* ''Set in Darkness'' (2000)
* ''The Falls'' (2001)
* ''Resurrection Men'' (2002) - won the Edgar Award
* ''A Question of Blood'' (2003)
* ''Fleshmarket Close'' (2004) - American title ''Fleshmarket Alley'' [[note]]Although the original title takes its name from an actual street name in Edinburgh[[/note]]
* ''The Naming of the Dead'' (2006)
* ''Exit Music'' (2007) - won the [=ITV3=] Crime Thriller Award and the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
* ''Standing in Another Man's Grave'' (2012)
* ''Saints of the Shadow Bible'' (2013)
* ''Even Dogs in the Wild'' (2015) - won the RBA Prize for Crime Writing
* ''Rather Be the Devil'' (2016)
* ''In a House of Lies'' (2018)
* ''A Song for the Dark Times'' (2020)
* ''A Heart Full of Headstones'' (2022)

!!Short story collections
* ''A Good Hanging'' (1992)
* ''Beggars Banquet'' (2002)
* ''The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Short Stories'' (2014) - omnibus containing all of the stories from the previous two collections, as well as previously uncollected stories from magazines and newspapers, plus a couple of new ones

!!Other novels set in the same universe
* ''Doors Open'' (2008)
* ''The Complaints'' (2009)
* ''The Impossible Dead'' (2011)

[[/folder]]
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!!Tropes Found in the Rebus Books:
* TheAlcoholic: Quite a few characters have drink problems.
* TheAllegedCar: Rebus' Saab 900, particularly in the later books when its increasingly decrepit state parallels Rebus' own aging body.
* AlwaysMurder: Somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]]. Rebus deals mostly with murders (well, a few cases [[SeekingTheMissingFindingTheDead start off as missing persons enquiries...]]) but as a senior detective, that is pretty much what his workload would be. However the short stories have him dealing with more mundane crimes, mainly theft.
* AmbiguousSituation: A few, usually involving strong circumstantial evidence but no actual proof.
** Rebus's earlier sidekick Brian Holmes is subject to a brutal attack which leaves him in a coma; after he recovers, he decides to leave the police. Rebus suspects that [[spoiler: the attack was orchestrated by Nell, Holmes's fiancee (who wanted him to leave the police and had argued with him about this shortly before the attack), but he cannot prove this]].
** 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 the secret of his past died with him]].
* AmicableExes: Rebus and his ex-wife Rhona, for the most part.
* AssholeVictim: Quite a few murder victims are not exactly sympathetic characters — among those who get bumped off are pimps, paedophiles, gangsters and in one case, a serial killer.
* BadgesAndDogTags: Rebus was in the Army before joining the police.
* BadToTheLastDrop: DCS Watson has a reputation for serving up terrible coffee to anyone who goes into his office. When Gill Templar comments that his coffee has got better of late, Rebus quips that her tastebuds must be getting corroded.
* BeenThereShapedHistory: In ''The Naming of the Dead'', John Rebus and Siobhan Clarke have an interesting encounter with an [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush unnamed US president]].
* BigBad: The veteran Edinburgh gangster Morris Gerald "Big Ger" Cafferty is Rebus's main antagonist; their relationship veers between outright hostility and an uneasy partnership which happens whenever one of them needs something from the other (as a result of the latter, some of Rebus's colleagues assume that he's [[DirtyCop on the take]]). He's often linked to cases that Rebus and Clarke are investigating, but there is never enough evidence to bring major charges against him although he has done time in prison for some of his more minor crimes. In later novels, he claims to have gone straight although he has actually retained criminal control of Edinburgh from behind the scenes.
* BloodFromTheMouth: This happens to Rebus in ''Rather Be the Devil,'' thanks to his developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder after a lifetime of heavy smoking. There's also a spot on his lung. [[spoiler: It turns out to be benign.]]
* {{Bookworm}}: Rebus, in intent at least. His habit of buying books on a variety of subjects that he might one day get around to reading is occasionally touched upon, 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 some Rebus memorabilia dotted around the place, including a photo of Ken Stott (the second actor to play him on TV) on the wall by the bar.
* ConnectTheDeaths: The plot of ''Even Dogs in the Wild.'' [[spoiler: One of the deaths has only been made to look like it's part of the serial killer's MO, but the others are linked.]]
* ContinuityNod: Plenty; previous cases can and do get referred to. Supporting characters sometimes reappear or are mentioned in passing.
* ContrivedCoincidence: In ''A Song for the Dark Times'', Siobhan and the Murder Investigation Team in Edinburgh are investigating the murder of a rich Saudi student, while the retired Rebus heads north to look into his son-in-law's disappearance. It so happens that the lord who owns most of the land up north is a business associate of the Saudi. [[spoiler: Subverted in the end, though, as that ''really is'' just a coincidence.]]
* CowboyCop: Rebus is less inclined to use physical violence than your average Cowboy Cop (although he's not entirely above it), but certainly has little place for rules and procedures when they stop him getting his man.
* 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=], and they front a Greenpeace charity concert.
* 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 was 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.
* {{Crossover}}: During the Rebus hiatus, Rankin created a new protagonist, DI Malcolm Fox. Fox starred in two novels, ''The Complaints'' and ''The Impossible Dead''. When Rankin brought Rebus back in ''Standing in Another Man's Grave'', Fox appeared too, and has since become a regular character in the Rebus series.
** Jim Stevens, a journalist who appears in several novels [[spoiler: before becoming a murder victim in ''Dead Souls'']], also appears in Rankin's non-Rebus novel ''Watchman'', establishing that it is [[TheVerse part of the same universe]].
* DealWithTheDevil: In ''The Hanging Garden'', Rebus strikes one of these with Cafferty, promising to bring down upstart gangster Tommy Telford in return for Cafferty's men finding the hit-and-run driver who knocked down Rebus's daughter Sammy.
* DefectiveDetective: Rebus has all the stereotypical personal problems associated with being a detective, ranging from what looks like [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]] in the earliest novels to excessive drinking and a failed marriage.
* DirtyCop: PlayedWith. Rebus is sometimes seen as one of these (by some of the villains as well as by other cops) due to his closer-than-really-acceptable relationship with gangster Gerald "Big Ger" Cafferty. In actual fact, though, he's really on the straight and narrow (mostly) and his relationship with Cafferty is more like FriendlyEnemy at best.
** The first novel, ''Knots and Crosses'', was written in such a way as to imply that Rebus himself could be the killer -- although the subsequent publication of another twenty-plus novels [[LateArrivalSpoiler rather gives away]] the fact that he isn't.
** Played straight with [[spoiler: Beth Hastie and Jackie Dyson]] in ''Even Dogs in the Wild''.
* DonutMessWithACop: Played with; uniform coppers are sometimes referred to as being fond of Greggs (a real-life British bakery chain) but they go there for the savoury products (steak bakes, sausage rolls, etc) rather than the doughnuts. Actually TruthInTelevision as far as many UsefulNotes/BritishCoppers are concerned. Although one of the ones in the world of Rebus does actually arrest someone in a branch of Greggs — he recognised the man in front of him in the lunch queue as a wanted criminal.
* DoubleMeaningTitle: Plenty of examples. To begin with, there's the main character's name — a "rebus" is a picture that is also a puzzle.
** ''Hide and Seek'' is about Rebus hunting a killer; the last thing the victim said was: "Hide! Hide!". This leads Rebus to 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''.
** 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.
** ''Fleshmarket Close'' starts out in the Edinburgh street of the same name (so called because it used to be a butcher's market), but goes on to be about two different 'flesh markets'; prostitution and people-trafficking.
** ''The Naming of the Dead'' refers to the ceremony that Siobhan's left-wing parents attend as part of the G8 protests, the list of victims compiled by Rebus and Siobhan during the course of their investigation, and Rebus's grief when he names his friends and relatives who have died (the novel having started with his brother Michael's funeral).
* DrowningMySorrows: ''Tooth and Nail'' begins with Rebus on a train to London. Opposite him is an Englishman who went up to Edinburgh for a [[UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion rugby]] match between Scotland and England; Scotland won [[note]] an allusion to Scotland's famous home victory over England in 1990, although the final score is different in the novel [[/note]] and the Englishman is consoling himself with many beers on the journey home.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Rankin has said that Rebus' interests in the early books (jazz music, in particular) were [[AuthorAppeal there because Rankin was into those things]], and as the novels progressed, Rebus developed more of his own personality.
** He also said he wrote the first novel, ''Knots and Crosses'', 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.
** Earlier novels had parts of the story being told [[PerspectiveFlip from the criminals' points of view]]. This was largely dropped after ''Tooth and Nail'' (''Black and Blue'' being a notable exception). In later novels, the only criminal character whose thoughts the reader could occasionally glimpse at would be Cafferty.
** Siobhan Clarke does not appear until ''The Black Book'', the fifth novel in the series. In the earlier novels, the sidekick role was filled by Brian Holmes, who leaves the police after suffering a serious injury as a result of a brutal attack [[spoiler: which Rebus suspects was orchestrated by Holmes's fiancee, who wanted him to leave the police. However, he cannot prove this]].
** Cafferty is first mentioned in ''Tooth and Nail'' (as a criminal Rebus is giving evidence against) and does not become a regular character until ''The Black Book''.
* EvenEvilHasStandards: In ''Even Dogs in the Wild'', 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.]]
* EveryoneHasStandards: In ''The Hanging Garden'', Rebus's car [[spoiler: is stolen and used in a hit-and-run; the perpetrator, who did this to take out a rival and frame Rebus for it, left an empty whisky bottle in the car to make it look like he'd been drinking. Rebus is appalled — but not so much at the insinuation that he'd drink and drive, more at the fact that the perp used a cheap brand of whisky]].
* FailedASpotCheck: [[spoiler: Rebus himself]] in ''A Heart Full of Headstones'', who misses [[spoiler: Cafferty's]] security cameras at a crucial moment.
* GoingNative: Siobhan Clarke is English, but seems to be in favour of Scottish independence.
* HeroAntagonist: In ''Standing in Another Man's Grave'', Malcolm Fox, the protagonist of Rankin's novels about a police InternalAffairs unit, comes after Rebus because he suspects him of being a DirtyCop due to his ongoing association with Cafferty.
* HistoricalDomainCharacter: An interesting example occurs in ''Black and Blue'' — an ''unidentified serial killer'' is a minor character. The killer in question is the man known as Bible John, who murdered three women in Glasgow in the late 1960s and was never caught. In the novel, which is set in the then-present (ie. the mid-1990s), Edinburgh is rocked by a series of [[JackTheRipoff copycat killings]], and the original Bible John killer (identified to the reader via a series of internal monologues) is not happy about having an imitator. [[spoiler: Rebus eventually works out that the character in question is Bible John, but by the time he has done so, the man has vanished. And murdered his imitator. Given that Bible John is never mentioned in later novels, other than when Rebus's interest in historical crimes is referred to, it must be assumed that Rebus never caught him.]]
* HowWeGotHere: ''A Heart Full of Headstones'' opens with Rebus on trial, and the rest of the novel details what got him there.
* InternalAffairs: Malcolm Fox was the protagonist of two novels about this aspect of police work before getting drawn into Rebus's world. Other officers have a tendency to hold this against him.
** An interesting twist in ''In a House of Lies'' is that [[spoiler: the two internal affairs cops are also the [[DirtyCop dirty cops]]]].
* IrrationalHatred: Hatred may be too strong a word, but Rebus takes a dislike to his daughter's boyfriend on account of his name — Ned, which in Scottish slang means a young delinquent.
* JackTheRipoff: ''Black and Blue'' gives us a series of murders modelled on the RealLife [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_John Bible John]] killings. This is acknowledged in-universe, with the killer in the novel getting nicknamed "Johnny Bible".
* KickedUpstairs: After the events of ''Even Dogs in the Wild'', Malcolm Fox is promoted to the elite squad at Gartcosh for political reasons that have nothing to do with his qualifications, as he is painfully aware.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: As stated above, the notion that Rebus may be the killer in ''Knots and Crosses'' (in keeping with that novel having been written as a SettingUpdate of ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' rather than as a crime novel) is pretty much nixed by the existence of all subsequent novels.
** We also have the situation at the end of ''Exit Music'' when Cafferty is in a coma after being attacked, and we do not know if he will survive. His reappearance in ''Standing in Another Man's Grave'' (published five years later) and in subsequent novels is a giveaway that he did.
* LimitedAdvancementOpportunities: Rebus doesn't make it beyond DI, thanks to his joint reputation as CowboyCop and DirtyCop.
** When he comes out of his TenMinuteRetirement, Rebus winds up demoted to DS, meaning that he's now Siobhan's subordinate.
** Siobhan falls victim to this as well, as Fox gets KickedUpstairs to a job she would probably be better at.
* TheMissusAndTheEx: Gender-flipped and played straight in ''The Hanging Garden'' after Rebus's daughter Sammy gets knocked unconscious by a hit-and-run driver. Rebus's ex-wife Rhona comes up from London with her new partner, Jackie, in tow; naturally, Rebus takes an instant dislike to him. Later on, Rhona runs into Patience Aitken, Rebus's on-off love interest.
* TheMole: Rebus himself in ''Resurrection Men'', in which he gets assigned to a 'retraining' (ie. remedial) unit at the Scottish Police College consisting of undisciplined officers. Although it sounds like the sort of unit a CowboyCop like Rebus would fit into, he's actually working directly for the Chief Constable to investigate criminality on behalf of one or more of the other officers assigned to the unit (who are called the [[TitleDrop Resuurection Men]] [[note]] originally a term used to describe body-snatchers [[/note]] because it is hoped that the retraining will serve to resurrect their careers, at least for long enough to enable them to retire with full pensions).
* MutilationInterrogation: In ''Rather Be the Devil,'' [[spoiler: Ger Cafferty]] gets information out of a recalcitrant informant by literally ''nailing'' him to the floor.
* MyLocal: Rebus particularly enjoys spending his spare time in The Oxford Bar, a real pub in Edinburgh which Ian Rankin himself likes to frequent.
* 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. Cafferty is one of these as well — he always addresses Rebus as "Strawman" and has an underling who is invariably referred to as "The Weasel".
* NosyNeighbor: As Rebus points out in ''The Hanging Garden'': "Edinburgh neighbours know ''everything''. It's just that they most often keep it to themselves".
* OldCopYoungCop: Rebus and Siobhan. In the earlier novels, Rebus and Brian Holmes.
* PetTheDog: Cafferty's behaviour in ''Even Dogs in the Wild'', once he understands the serial killer's motivation.
** 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. Eventually, Rebus gives in and adopts him. Brillo, for that is his name, features in subsequent books.
** Cafferty hires Rebus in ''A Heart Full of Headstones'' in order to make peace with a man who had betrayed him. [[spoiler: As Rebus figures out, this is a pretext for taking out the interlopers who are on his turf.]]
* PerspectiveFlip: ''Doors Open'', written after Rebus was retired first time around, is told from the perspective of a group of would-be criminals (art thieves, specifically) rather than the police. Although Rebus himself is not mentioned by name, he is referred to when a CID cop recalls a recent retirement party that he attended, the clear implication being that it was Rebus's one (which occurred at the end of ''Exit Music'').
* ReligiousBruiser: Todd Goodyear, the uniformed constable who gets involved in the investigation in ''Exit Music'', spends his downtime preaching on street corners.
** In the first few novels, Rebus himself, when he's still a self-identified Christian.
* 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 RealLife 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.
** The RealLife merger of Scotland's police forces into one national force -- Police Scotland -- happens in Rebus's universe.
** After retiring, Rebus takes advantage of a RealLife change to the retirement age to rejoin the police. Rankin had already brought Rebus back as a civilian working in a cold cases unit by that point, but decided that having him become an actual copper again (albeit with a demotion) thanks to a change in the rules was too good an opportunity to miss.
** ''A Heart Full of Headstones'' is set at the time of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, specifically in the post-lockdown period.
** On a lighter note (for those who don't actually live in Edinburgh), roadworks on Edinburgh thoroughfares like Leith Walk and Lothian Road went on for so long that ''even the characters in the Rebus books'' started complaining about them.
* SeekingTheMissingFindingTheDead: Any missing person investigation will invariably become a murder investigation.
* SettingUpdate: The first Rebus novel, ''Knots and Crosses'', was written with the intention of having ''Literature/TheStrangeCaseOfDrJekyllAndMrHyde'' occur in (then) modern Edinburgh, with Rebus as the Jekyll figure (the book implies for a while that Rebus himself is unwittingly the killer he's trying to find).
* ShellShockedVeteran: Rebus, especially in the early novels when he is traumatised by his time in the Army, which included at least one posting in Northern Ireland and enduring the rigours of SAS selection, the latter of which led to a nervous breakdown. His PTSD is partially cured by undergoing hypnotherapy treatment from his brother (a stage hypnotist) in ''Knots and Crosses'', although he continues to drink heavily and have trouble sleeping. In ''The Hanging Garden'' he recalls having been one of several soldiers who took part in an unauthorised action against Catholic civilians in Belfast in retaliation for a comrade having been shot by an IRA sniper. In ''A Question of Blood'', he meets a psychiatrist who tells him that he might want to talk to someone about what happened in the Army.
* ShoutOut: A few...
** Musical references abound; the fact that some of the novels are named after various albums and songs is the tip of the iceberg.
** Brian Holmes, Rebus's sidekick in the earlier novels, was of course named after Literature/SherlockHolmes. A nod to said detective also comes with the title of the short story "The Three-Pint Problem".
** ''The Naming of the Dead'' has several references to ''Series/{{Columbo}}''.
** In ''Saints of the Shadow Bible'', Rebus recalls his early days in the police, commenting that ''[[Series/LifeOnMars2006 Life on Mars]]'' "felt like a documentary".
** In ''A Song for the Dark Times'', Siobhan is surprised to learn that Rebus enjoys reading the Literature/JackReacher novels.
* StealingFromTheTill: 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.
* TheTeetotaler: Malcolm Fox, a former alcoholic.
* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Rebus and Siobhan Clarke with Malcolm Fox in ''Saints of the Shadow Bible''. And Siobhan and Malcolm in later novels.
** In ''Tooth and Nail'', Rebus is sent down to London to help track down a serial killer; Detective Inspector 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. [[spoiler: Although it turns out that Flight was actually the one who requested that Rebus be drafted into the investigation, as he wanted an outsider's perspective and knew of Rebus by reputation.]]
** There's also DI Abernethy, a Special Branch officer who appears in a couple of novels and manages to rub all of the Edinburgh cops up the wrong way.
* TenMinuteRetirement: Rebus retires at the end of ''Exit Music'', and is working for the civilian cold cases unit in ''Standing in Another Man's Grave''. By ''Saints of the Shadow Bible'', he's back on the job again, albeit with a demotion from Detective Inspector to Detective Sergeant. In subsequent novels, he is retired again but still keen to be more involved in cases than many senior officers would like.
* WeHardlyKnewYe: Thanks to his rather distant relationship with his daughter, Rebus did not know his son-in-law well. In ''A Song for the Dark Times'', Rebus investigates his disappearance which, given the novels' use of SeekingTheMissingFindingTheDead, can only lead to one thing. He later expresses regret that he never really got to know the man.
* {{Yakuza}}: Japanese gangsters take an interest in on the Edinburgh crime scene in ''The Hanging Garden''.
* YouGetMeCoffee: One of the junior detectives is invariably assigned to make the tea for the others. In ''A Song for the Dark Times'', it's DC Phil Yeats, and his vital yet mundane role is remarked upon almost to the point of lampshading.
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