Inspector Rebus span a broad spectrum of Scotland, including council estates, tenements, business districts, nightclubs, prisons, dying mining towns, secluded villages and desolate hillsides, as well as the better-known pubs and streets of Edinburgh. Some of these locations are fictional, although they may be based on real places. For example, the Pilmuir estate is a conflation of the two real Edinburgh locations Pilton and Muirhouse. Other locations, such as the Oxford Bar, Arden Street, and St Leonards police station, are real. Frequent references to real places, or local politics firmly ground the Rebus series in the real world. Another strong feature of
John Rebus Rebus to resign from the SAS and which spurred a nervous breakdown. Following lobbying from the Army, Rebus was given a position with Lothian and Borders Police in order to recover from the trauma. He went to Summerhall as a detective constable in November 1982 In many of his books Rebus works from the St Leonard's Police Station in Edinburgh. Ian Rankin prefers to leave the physical appearance of his characters to the reader's imagination, although when Rebus is first introduced in "Knots and Crosses", we learn that he has brown hair and green eyes, like his brother. His rough