Ian’s end of year round-up: 2024
Quite a busy year as it turns out. Having started work on Midnight and Blue towards the end of 2023, writing continued through the first four or five months of this year. Some of this was done on a cruise ship as Miranda and I sailed from San Francisco to New Zealand. Lots of sea days as we crossed the Pacific, though I did stop off at Samoa to visit Robert Louis Stevenson’s home and pay my respects at his mausoleum. The sweaty climb to his hilltop resting place nearly killed me, mind. I was able to put my novel aside while enjoying a week touring the wineries around Hawkes Bay and a further week on the Cook Islands. During the trip we crossed the international date line no fewer than three times. I think that qualifies me as Doctor Who or something…
Back in Edinburgh work continued on the book, though there was another break so I could spend my 64th birthday in Athens. When May arrived, I found myself doing publicity for the Rebus TV reboot, which premiered on BBC One and BBC Scotland that month. Screenwriter Gregory Burke did an amazing job with the script and I found actor Richard Rankin (playing the lead role) mesmerising onscreen – so much seemed to be happening behind his eyes. This was the best-received (and most-watched) of all the TV Rebuses. Fingers crossed for a second season.
With TV done and dusted it was time to move on to my stage play, Rebus: A Game Called Malice. This had been premiered in Hornchurch in 2023 but I reworked the new production substantially. Gray O’Brien was cast as Rebus and I was thrilled to attend a couple of the rehearsals, watching director Loveday Ingram and the ensemble spin gold from my written words. The play opened in Cambridge and then came to Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre – where I saw it every night. Such a buzz watching and hearing the audience’s reactions. The play went on to tour the UK, ending in Poole at the end of November – one heck of an adventure for all concerned.
During the tour, Midnight and Blue saw the light of day, accompanied by a clever and fun marketing campaign dreamed up by Orion’s Tom Noble. We had fake newspapers, Free John Rebus! posters and online competitions and music playlists. The book duly entered the UK charts in top spot and managed the same feat in Canada – making for one happy author. As I write this, I’m still planning signings and events in the run-up to Christmas – keep your eyes peeled.
Was all that enough to be going on with? Not quite. An album has just been released on the Rough Trade label (double vinyl or single CD). It’s called Behind The Counter With Ian Rankin, the concept being: if I ran my own record shop, what might you hear me playing as you walked in and browsed? It was a tough job to whittle down the original 60 or 70 selections but I think it makes for a fun listen. There’s also an insert with some photos of a very young music fan and his music collection. You have been warned.
So that was 2024. I’ve no idea what plans 2025 has for me, other than another lengthy cruise devised by my wife. Will I get any writing done on board? Watch this space…
I’ve read around 60 books this year. Here are some of my favourites:
Kevin Barry – The Heart In Winter (a doomed western romance, both brutal and poignant)
Lee Goldberg – Calico (a time-travelling mystery which again involves the wild west)
Chris Brookmyre – The Cracked Mirror (hard-boiled US cop and Miss Marple looky-likey team up to solve a brain-melting puzzle)
Dominic Nolan – White City (1950s London, Soho and gangsters and racial tensions – an amazing book)
Camilla Grudova – Children of Paradise (a crumbling Edinburgh cinema is staffed by a motley group of outsiders and weirdos – equal parts compelling and icky)
James Kaplan – Three Shades of Blue (the history of the making of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue, exploring the highs and lows of the main players)
Simon Mason – Missing Person: Alice (a lean, poetic crime story about a detective who specialises in the long-term missing. Think Simenon, but in contemporary England)
My albums of the year list would comprise:
Bill Ryder-Jones – Iechyd Da
Kathryn Williams and Withered Hand – Willson Williams
The The – Ensoulment
Chrysanths – Leave No Shadow
Snowgoose – Descendant
The Cure – Songs of a Lost World
Gigs of the year:
Erland Cooper at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh
The Bathers at the Voodoo Rooms Edinburgh
Colin Steele (Music of The Blue Nile) at St Bride’s Edinburgh
Filthy Tongues and Paul Hullah at the Voodoo Rooms Edinburgh
The Cure at The Troxy London
Films of the year:
Poor Things
Zone of Interest
Late Night with the Devil
Love Lies Bleeding
Hundreds of Beavers
And that’s a wrap. Here’s hoping you’ve all made memories in 2024 and that 2025 brings light into your life. Here’s to John Rebus, who goes with me everywhere – on paper, on stage and screen, and in my imagination.
Ian
