Vick Mickunas interviews Ian Rankin about his novel The Complaints (Little, Brown).

Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author. Over the course of two decades Rankin wrote a series of crime novels which featured Detective Inspector John Rebus of the Edinburgh (Scotland) police. As the series progressed, Rebus aged in real time until he reached the mandatory retirement age. Then Rankin ended that series.

In his new novel “The Complaints” Rankin introduces readers to Malcolm Fox, an investigator for the Scottish equivalent of what we here in the United States would call the department of internal affairs. Fox works for the Edinburgh police in the division known as “The Complaints.” So while the police are investigating crimes Fox is investigating the police. At least it is supposed to work that way.

In this interview Rankin talks about how he developed this new character and whether this novel might become the first book in a new series. And he leaves the door open to the possibility of bringing back John Rebus. It seems that the Edinburgh Police recently raised the retirement age from 60 to 65. We may not have seen the last of John Rebus after all.

This interview originally aired on WYSO Public Radio in Yellow Springs, Ohio. (www.wyso.org)

Listen to the podcast: local-national-962603

Or download it here [size is 23 Mb].

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