In the mid-1980s, in Edinburgh, Ian Rankin was hatching a plot for a 'crime thriller' from his student digs. Knots & Crosses - like its frayed protagonist John Rebus - was rough around the edges but marked a promising debut. More than thirty years later, Rankin and Rebus have a global following. The series has been both critically acclaimed and commercially popular. Detective John Rebus is anything but conventional. The same can be said of Ian Rankin's...