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List of Inspector Rebus characters
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List of Inspector Rebus characters
This is a list of characters from the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin. They are all fictional characters that have appeared in more than one novel in the series. A number of the characters appeared in the television adaptations made for ITV.
Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series. He was born in 1947 in Fife and left school at the age of fifteen to join the Army. After serving in Northern Ireland he applied to undergo selection for the SAS, but after a horrendous ordeal in training, left the army and joined the Lothian and Borders Police.
He is initially introduced as a Detective Sergeant, and is promoted to Detective Inspector early in the series.
Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke ("Shiv") is Rebus's trusted friend and partner. Her given name is represented in IPA /ʃɨˈvɔːn/. In the television dramatisations, Clarke was first played by Gayanne Potter, and then by Claire Price. In the 2024 reboot she is played by Lucie Shorthouse.
Clarke is much younger than Rebus. Her parents are English and politically active on the left. She has a university degree. She is a devoted follower of Hibernian Football Club (Hibs). As a woman, she faces obstacles to acceptance in the police force, especially since, like Rebus, she enjoys the challenges of solving cases rather than administrative work or networking.
The relationship between Clarke and Rebus is emotional; she is his apprentice but also something of a daughter figure, and there is, during the middle years, some romantic charge in the relationship as well. She first appears in The Black Book (1993) as a newly promoted Detective Constable. She remains a useful sidekick of Rebus until Set in Darkness (2000), when she becomes a secondary protagonist with chapters devoted to her cases and perspective. She is promoted to Detective Sergeant by the beginning of Resurrection Men (2002) and to Detective Inspector after Exit Music (2007). As a DI in the later novels, after Rebus's first retirement, she provides him with access to cases, and eventually she, Rebus, and Malcolm Fox become a kind of team. In Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013), Rebus rejoins the police as a DS and she is his superior. In A Song for the Dark Times (2020) she is the one who helps Rebus move downstairs to his new ground floor flat.
She is more willing and able than Rebus to incorporate technology into her work, and in The Falls (2001) she pursues a killer through an email correspondence while Rebus explores historical parallels. She is also more cautious than he about violating policies and procedures, and provides a voice of reason.
Like Rebus, she is "married to the job." Most of the men romantically interested in her (or she in them) are policemen. At one point, in Resurrection Men, she has three suitors but prefers the one who is willing to settle for a platonic relationship; later, she and Malcolm Fox have a similarly platonic relationship. In the later books she has an affair with divorced colleague DCI Graham Sutherland.
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List of Inspector Rebus characters
This is a list of characters from the Inspector Rebus series of detective novels by the Scottish writer Ian Rankin. They are all fictional characters that have appeared in more than one novel in the series. A number of the characters appeared in the television adaptations made for ITV.
Detective Inspector John Rebus is the protagonist in the Inspector Rebus series. He was born in 1947 in Fife and left school at the age of fifteen to join the Army. After serving in Northern Ireland he applied to undergo selection for the SAS, but after a horrendous ordeal in training, left the army and joined the Lothian and Borders Police.
He is initially introduced as a Detective Sergeant, and is promoted to Detective Inspector early in the series.
Detective Sergeant Siobhan Clarke ("Shiv") is Rebus's trusted friend and partner. Her given name is represented in IPA /ʃɨˈvɔːn/. In the television dramatisations, Clarke was first played by Gayanne Potter, and then by Claire Price. In the 2024 reboot she is played by Lucie Shorthouse.
Clarke is much younger than Rebus. Her parents are English and politically active on the left. She has a university degree. She is a devoted follower of Hibernian Football Club (Hibs). As a woman, she faces obstacles to acceptance in the police force, especially since, like Rebus, she enjoys the challenges of solving cases rather than administrative work or networking.
The relationship between Clarke and Rebus is emotional; she is his apprentice but also something of a daughter figure, and there is, during the middle years, some romantic charge in the relationship as well. She first appears in The Black Book (1993) as a newly promoted Detective Constable. She remains a useful sidekick of Rebus until Set in Darkness (2000), when she becomes a secondary protagonist with chapters devoted to her cases and perspective. She is promoted to Detective Sergeant by the beginning of Resurrection Men (2002) and to Detective Inspector after Exit Music (2007). As a DI in the later novels, after Rebus's first retirement, she provides him with access to cases, and eventually she, Rebus, and Malcolm Fox become a kind of team. In Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013), Rebus rejoins the police as a DS and she is his superior. In A Song for the Dark Times (2020) she is the one who helps Rebus move downstairs to his new ground floor flat.
She is more willing and able than Rebus to incorporate technology into her work, and in The Falls (2001) she pursues a killer through an email correspondence while Rebus explores historical parallels. She is also more cautious than he about violating policies and procedures, and provides a voice of reason.
Like Rebus, she is "married to the job." Most of the men romantically interested in her (or she in them) are policemen. At one point, in Resurrection Men, she has three suitors but prefers the one who is willing to settle for a platonic relationship; later, she and Malcolm Fox have a similarly platonic relationship. In the later books she has an affair with divorced colleague DCI Graham Sutherland.