Ian Rankin's Rebus to make another comeback

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jan/28/ian-rankins-rebus-to-make-another-comeback

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Pity poor Inspector Rebus - Ian Rankin won’t let him go quietly into retirement. While his fans may be delighted, they can hardly be surprised. Scotland’s favourite detective has already made three comebacks since he closed his first final case in Exit Music in 2007.

He was rediscovered five years later working as a “civilian” on cold cases in Standing in Another Man’s Grave; then came Saints of the Shadow Bible, followed by a collection of short stories last year, while Rankin was supposedly taking a year off. In one, written for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, a tour of a haunted house - given to Rebus as a retirement present by his colleague Siobhan Clarke - draws him inexorably back to the pathology lab, where he encounters his old colleague Dr Curt.

‘You’re supposed to be retired,’ Dr Curt said.

‘I am retired,’ Rebus stated.

‘Funny way of showing it…’

Indeed. Rankin revealed Rebus’s latest imminent return yesterday in a series of teasers which began on Sunday with a tweet about the likely title of the new novel:

The guesses began to pour in, prompting this steer.

On Monday Rankin dangled another hook:

Finally, a fan gave him an excuse to make the big reveal:

But comebacks carry their risks, as another celebrated detective could tell Rebus. In the 1952 novel Mrs McGinty’s Dead, Agatha Christie’s narcissistic Belgian suffered an increasingly familiar humiliation:

‘I should, perhaps, Madame, tell you a little more about myself. I am Hercule Poirot.’ The revelation left Mrs Summerhayes unmoved. ‘What a lovely name,’ she said kindly. ‘Greek, isn’t it?’

As if that wasn’t wounding enough, in the film version of the novel, Murder Most Foul, Poirot found himself usurped by Miss Marple. We can only hope that Siobhan Clarke doesn’t get ideas above her station. Or that Rebus finds a satisfying retirement hobby - growing marrows like Poirot, perhaps, or keeping bees like Sherlock Holmes.