'He's a bear of a man, who actually has to turn into something more like a fox.'įox's redeeming qualities aside, many fans still clamor for more of Detective Rebus and wonder why Rankin has switched gears. 'He's a kind of gentleman,' Rankin explains. When he falls under suspicion himself, however, Fox suddenly needs to shed his passive tendencies and become proactive. He works mostly as what Rankin calls a 'professional voyeur,' watching people in order to build up a case against them and then passing the information along elsewhere. Fox tends to be hated by everybody, police and villains alike.īut Fox's personality, though less brazen than Rebus', also lends itself to be more sympathetic and amenable to a reader. In short, you have to be a different kind of person than Rebus to work in a department that does surveillance on other cops, investigating claims of misdeeds by members of the force itself. 'You can't be a loner, you can't be a sort of vigilante, you can't break the rules - you've got to work well on a team.' 'You couldn't be a cop like Rebus and work ,' Rankin tells Linda Wertheimer on Morning Edition. But, he says, there's a big difference between the homicide unit and internal affairs. Rankin sees why readers would make the comparison, as both cops work in Edinburgh, and their stories are intimately tied to the city (where, incidentally, Rankin also lives). Rebus gained a reputation for being a bit more rough-and-tumble, while Fox, Rankin says, is the kind of cop who drinks soft drinks at the bar. The book, The Complaints, feels like it has the potential to become a new series.īecause of Rebus' popularity, readers will inevitably compare Malcolm Fox, The Complaints' protagonist, with their beloved detective. His creator, Scottish author Ian Rankin, has now written a new book with a new protagonist, a cop who works in the division of internal affairs - in other words, a cops who chases cops. Detective John Rebus of the Edinburgh police force has retired after 17 novels and a slew of short stories.

The complaints by ian rankin