Scottish crime author Ian Rankin has revealed he is 'slowing down' after nearly 40 years of writing about his famously grumpy detective John Rebus. The 66-year-old writer says he no longer wants to keep up the pace of his younger years.
The Edinburgh native revealed he started drawing his pension earlier this year and his wife, Miranda Harvey, has been telling him it's time to ease off and enjoy life a little more.
Fighting ageing and his wife
"I'm fighting partly against ageing and partly against my wife," he said. "She said 'You should take your foot off the accelerator and let's enjoy ourselves while we can, because you never know what's around the corner'."
It is quite a change for a man who, when his children were young and money was tight, was writing two books a year. Speaking to the PA Media, Rankin stated: "I have been slowing down. When I was skint, when we were young and had two kids and I had no money, I was writing two books a year just to put food on the table.
"I'm now in a fortunate position where a book every two, three, four or five years would give me enough money to live on.
Ideas don't come as readily
"The ideas don't come as readily as they once did and I can't write at the same rate as I used to."
Although there is another reason Rankin is thinking about his future. He admitted that the demands of being a novelist meant he was not always as present with his family as he wished.
"It's a curse of being a writer that a lot of the time I'm physically present but my head isn't in the room," he said. "There are holidays with the kids I barely remember, first days at school that I barely remember because I was physically present but mentally absent – and that's a shame."
Rebus celebrates 40 years
However unlike the author, Rebus is showing no signs of slowing down. The character will celebrate 40 years next year and recently just found a new audience on TV. With the BBC reboot, starring Richard Rankin as a modern version of the detective, proving a hit with viewers across the UK.
Previously Rebus was brought to screens by John Hannah and Ken Stott, but this time around Rankin has had more involvement with the series. The author serves as an exclusive producer and works closely with the scripts, often offering his thoughts with the writers. This is a stark difference to the earlier adaptations, which Rankin believed did not always do the books justice.
"In the early days of Rebus, I was very hands-off, and then it wasn't made in a way that I thought was satisfactory," he stated. "It didn't serve the books well, because you cannot shoehorn a 300-page novel into an hour of television."
New standalone thriller
Rankin has also taken a break from Rebus to write The Heights, his first standalone thriller in 20 years. Set in a luxury London high-rise, the novel explores the divide between the wealthy residents and the people who service their lives.
Despite the novel being optioned for TV, Rankin is not holding his breath due to the effort he went through to get Rebus on TV. He said: "It took years for us to get Rebus on the TV screen, whereas this so far, touch wood, has been fairly painless."
And despite his plans to slow down, Rankin is not quite ready to leave Rebus behind. There are plans to mark the detective's 40th anniversary, and another book is clearly tempting. "We're hoping to do quite a lot to help celebrate the 40th anniversary – and the idea of (writing) a book is certainly very appealing," the author revealed.
There may even be a way to persuade his wife that another Rebus novel is a good idea. "I'll have to do a wider tour, go to some of the other countries where he's been successful," he says. "Then I can sell it to my wife as a world trip."
