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 just solve cases, he also has the intention of doing some greater good as well. On the 13 December 2009 edition of the BBC Radio Scotland programme Shereen, Rankin admitted that he knows where Rebus is in retirement: working on cold cases at police headquarters as a civilian. Rankin said it was possible that his new character, Inspector Fox, may either bump into Rebus or end up on an investigation that has something to do with a skeleton in Rebus's closet. However, including Rebus in a novel currently would mean that Scottish Television would have the right to produce the