He recently received the OBE for services to literature, and opted to receive the prize in his home city of Edinburgh, where he lives with his partner and two sons. The Rebus books gave Rankin an opportunity to depict Scotland, in particular Edinburgh, in high, often bloody colour. After a long lifetime of drinking and smoking, Rebus has COPD and can no longer climb the stairs to the second-floor home where he has lived for years.

I keep expecting each Rebus book to be the last but I am happy to see there is another one in preparation for later this year. There is nothing that Rebus will not do for Sammy, despite their rocky relationship and her young daughter, Carrie, setting off in his rickety old Saab, listening to a CD music compilation put together for him by Siobhan, under the title of 'Songs for the Dark Times'. There’s also a link to their friend, the glamorous Isabella Meiklejohn whose father owns swathes of Sutherland, including the commune and the camp.

The author managed to keep killers hidden in plain sight and keep the tension building right to the end, whilst still pulling in some perfectly pitched tender moments between Rebus and Samantha. This is Rankin at his best, Rebus at his best, storytelling that meets the moment and transcends all genres and expectations.

What with Rebus being (officially) retired, the Edinburgh part of the tale, involving Clarke and Malcolm Fox, was uninspiring. He now runs an exclusive club where he films the guests to obtain blackmail material, and he involves Fox in one of his blackmail projects.

For more than three decades Ian Rankin has been out in front of the pack, delivering the best books out there, raising the bar each and every time. COPD has forced him to move to a ground floor apartment but he takes his cold case files with him for a little light reading. By his own admission, Rebus was not a very good husband or father and he always let his job take precedence over his family responsibilities.