Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin at Word Christchurch 2021

Ian Rankin, the master of tartan noir, discusses his new book The Dark Remains, which brings to life the criminal world of 1970s Glasgow.

The Dark Remains focuses on a new character, Detective Inspector Laidlaw, and is based on an unfinished manuscript by the late Scottish crime writer William McIlvanney.

Ian Rankin talks with NZ crime writer Vanda Symon live from Edinburgh. (A highlight from the 2021 WORD Christchurch Festival)

• Related: Ian Rankin on finishing his literary hero's book (Afternoons)

Ian Rankin:

There was a time in Edinburgh when I was in a street and two doors away, two houses away, was Alexander McCall Smith. And if you went to the top of our road and turned left there was J.K. Rowling, Kate Atkinson was about a quarter-mile further along and then further in town you had other writers as well.

There was one occasion in the local café where all three of us  – me, Nicole Smith and J.K Rowling – were all in the café at the same time and had a chat. But it was weird even for a small city. Edinburgh’s a city of half a million people, but the number of writers who have chosen to live here is just extraordinary and keeps growing.

Vanda Symon:

What is it about the physical environment there that makes everyone’s souls so dark?

Ian Rankin:

Well, it’s quite a dark city in some ways, it’s a very 'Jekyll and Hyde' city which is why Robert Lewis Stevenson, got the idea for the book from a couple of real Scottish characters. One was Deacon William Brodie, a gentleman by day and thief by night who was eventually hanged on a scaffold he had actually made. That sense of being one thing during daylight and something else at night gave Stevenson the idea for the story because as a child he had a wardrobe in his bedroom made by William Brodie. His nurse would tell him the story of this guy who was good and evil in the same character.

The other thing that [Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde] was based on was a real Scottish doctor who went to London and consorted with body snatchers. He had gruesome experiments he would carry out in his laboratory. And the way that Stevenson describes the house of Dr Jekyll in London is very much like this guy’s house.

Darkness is there, gothic stuff is there. If you walk around Edinburgh late at night, it can feel as though it’s the 17^th or 18^th century because a lot of the central city really hasn’t changed that much. So if you walk down the road a mile and go down some of the little alleyways and you’re alone there you’ll feel like you’ve gone back 300 years in history. Behind these thick walls and behind these darkened windows anything could be happening.

That’s what I like about it – that Edinburgh shows you one face but hides another face. There’s the world of Edinburgh that the tourist sees and then there’s the Edinburgh that those of us who live here know. A bit like Dunedin, Vanda.

Vanda Symon:

Yes, it’s got its grimy seething underbelly which we all love about it. Now to William McIIvanney. One of the things that comes across in his books is the wry humour. Was his humour like that in real life?

Ian Rankin:

Yeah. Willy was an extraordinary man. He was a self-made writer, he was an intellectual. His character Laidlaw has books of philosophy proudly on his desk in the office he shares with other detectives. Books by Camus and other writers and these are books that Willy enjoyed. Willy read for pleasure and read to better himself.

He had the sense of sort of pulling himself up all his life, but he was also funny, down-to-earth, self-deprecating, and very generous. He was also incredibly handsome: he looked like Clark Gable with film-star good looks throughout his life.

The third act in his life, when his books came back into print and these huge audiences were turning up to see him was just wonderful to witness. There’s a big crime fiction festival in Harrogate in England I interviewed him there on a Saturday or Sunday morning.

When we were backstage he said, “Who the hell is going to come and see me? Nobody knows who I am.” And when we walked out, there must have been 800 people in the room he got a standing ovation and he almost rose up into the sky because he was so thrilled,

I’m just sad that he didn’t stick around. Having got the idea to bring Laidlaw back [in The Dark Remains] on the back of that success I’m very sad that he never lived to see it come to fruition.

Vanda Symon:

William McIIvanney was also a poet. Do you think that a poetic voice was reflected in his writing?

Ian Rankin:

The reason he only wrote three Laidlaw novels was that there were things he wanted to do which could not be contained within the crime novel. He wanted to write literary novels, plays, song lyrics, political essays and reviews and all sorts. So he stepped away from crime fiction, but his books are much more poetic than the Rebus novels, this was one of the challenges that I had when I took on this project. “Can I write like William McIIvanney?” because if you could see me peeping out from the words in this book I have failed. This had to read like a William McIIvanney novel.

Vanda Symon:

So you didn’t think that there was license for this to be a hybrid?

Ian Rankin:

No. I was very clear that it be Willy’s book, Willy’s story, Willy’s philosophy, Willy’s city.

I’ve never tried to be a ventriloquist before. But it started off with about 100 pages typed up by somebody at the publisher, Canongate. These were made from handwritten notes that Willy’s widow Siobhan Lynch eventually handed over a few years after he died and Canongate came to me and said, “Do you think is there anything here? Is there a book here?”

And so the first act for me was as an archaeologist. I was digging through these notes trying to make sense of them and it turned out that there were at least two books that Willy was thinking of: a prequel at the start of Laidlaw’s career and a final book at its very end.

There were other notes for what might be short stories. There were character sketches, but I wasn’t sure if they belonged anywhere. There was a ton of stuff and so I was going through it, brushing delicately around each bit of it to see what was there, what was usable. Eventually, I went to Canongate and said there’s a novel here, and that was when he said, “Well will you do it because Siobhan wants you to?”

And that was when I took a sharp intake of breath.

Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin is the number one bestselling author of the Inspector Rebus series. The Rebus books have been translated into 36 languages and are bestsellers worldwide. He is the recipient of four Crime Writers’ Association Dagger Awards, including the prestigious Diamond Dagger, and in 2002 he received an OBE for services to literature. He lives in Edinburgh.

ianrankin.net
Twitter: @beathhigh

This session was recorded in partnership with WORD Christchurch