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
Dead Souls (Rankin novel) 2001. In this there were significant plot differences from the novel. These concern the fate of the missing person, the nature of the relationship between Rebus and his ex-girlfriend, and the character of her husband. Dead Souls (Rankin novel) Dead Souls is a 1999 crime novel by Ian Rankin that features Inspector Rebus. The title refers both to Joy Division's song "Dead Souls" and to the 1842 Nikolai Gogol novel "Dead Souls"; quotes from the latter appear at the beginnings of the two divisions of the book. The novel won the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière upon its publication