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 John Rebus Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin, ten of which have so far been televised as "Rebus". The novels are mostly set in and around Edinburgh. Rebus has been portrayed by John Hannah and Ken Stott for Television, with Ron Donachie playing the character for the BBC Radio dramatisations. According to Ian Rankin, John Rebus was born in 1947 and grew up in a pre-fabricated house in Craigmead Terrace, Cardenden, Fife (Rankin's home town), the son of a stage hypnotist. His grandfather was an