The Inspector Rebus books are a series of detective novels by the Scottish author Ian Rankin. The novels, centred on Detective Inspector John Rebus, are mostly based in and around Edinburgh. They are considered an important contribution to 'Tartan Noir'.

The Rebus novel series began in 1987 when Ian Rankin published Knots and Crosses; his intention was to write a standalone variation on Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, set in contemporary Edinburgh. He was at first upset that bookshops shelved it in the crime fiction section, but he gradually accepted the fact that Rebus was to be the protagonist of a detective series: his goal became to write "on the surface a crime novel that was going to sell loads of copies, but which would be accepted by my peers in academia as serious Scottish fiction." From 1991 through 2007, in fact, Rankin produced a new Rebus novel every year, and there have been seven "late" novels from 2012–22, with a retired Rebus. The 1997 book, Black & Blue, which linked Rebus's case with the unsolved Bible John murders, achieved the double goal of sales and prestige. First, it was a best-seller and the backlist of Rebus novels came into high demand. Second, it won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, but also came into consideration on more general lists of the best Scottish novels or writers, and was discussed in the British press as a novel which transgressed the boundaries of genre. The very fact that in 2002 a book on Black & Blue was commissioned for the Continuum Contemporaries Series, alongside authors such as A.S. Byatt, Arundhati Roy, and Nobellists Kazuo Ishiguro and Toni Morrison, makes it clear that Rankin had become a "serious" author on the international stage.

Rebus himself has continued to wrestle with his own "Hyde" aspects, particularly when confronted with old cases where his recklessness may have led to injustice or death. Other characters have borne out this theme of the dual self, for example the Wolfman serial killer in Tooth and Nail and the former Nazi Lintz in The Hanging Garden. Most importantly, Rebus has faced off since The Black Book (1992) with 'Big Ger' Cafferty, a vicious gangster about his own age. Rankin compares the relationship between Rebus and Cafferty to that of Wringhim and Gilmartin (the devil himself) in the Scottish crime classic Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg.

Except for Tooth and Nail, all the Rebus novels are set in Scotland, and most of them in Edinburgh. Rankin and interviewers such as Gavin Esler have remarked that the city is a character in the novels. Early on, in 1992, Rankin published A Good Hanging, a series of twelve stories set at different times of the year in different Edinburgh neighborhoods. In 1993, in The Black Book, he also associated Rebus for the first time with a real Edinburgh police station, St Leonard's, and thereafter began to place Rebus in real locations in the city, such as the Oxford Bar and an apartment in Arden Street. In 2005 Rankin published Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey, and Rebus-themed walking tours of Edinburgh have been available. Christopher Ward explores in depth the relationship of Rebus to Edinburgh in his 2010 M.Phil thesis at the University of Glasgow, "It's hard to be a saint in the city: Notions of city in the Rebus novels of Ian Rankin."

Most of the novels include both scenes set in neglected or criminal neighborhoods and others set in casinos, deluxe hotels, or other haunts of the rich. Rebus (in his thoughts) and Rankin (in interviews) refer to this contrast as the "underworld and overworld" of the city. Rankin has noted that he enjoys writing about Rebus precisely because, as a policeman, he has a right to entry in both worlds. Rankin stresses that the city of Edinburgh itself has this Jekyll/Hyde quality, contrasting the twisting, multilayered Old Town clustered around Edinburgh Castle with the beautiful, rationally laid-out New Town.

Rankin decided early on that the Rebus novels would be set "in real time," that is, in about the year they were written, reflecting current events. Eleanor Bell notes that "Throughout his detective series Rankin has therefore aspired to present authentic visions of Scotland, to reflect subtle changes of detail in Edinburgh life and provide persuasive representations of the nation" as political and economic changes occur. Thus, for example, the Rebus novels reflect the long process of road blockages and drivers' frustrations during the construction of the Edinburgh Trams. The novels have also tracked the even longer struggles for Scottish Independence, including delving into the past in the Malcolm Fox novel The Impossible Dead. As a result, the Rebus novels are discussed in contexts such as "Concepts of Corruption: Crime Fiction and the Scottish 'State'" and "Redevelopment Fiction: Architecture, Town-planning, and 'Unhomeliness.'"

See List of Inspector Rebus characters.

The unifying point of view in the Rebus series is that of John Rebus, with the point of view sometimes shifting to colleagues, criminals or suspects.