Which novel introduced Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh detective Inspector Rebus?

Knots and Crosses introduced Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh detective Inspector Rebus.

Published in 1987, Knots and Crosses is the first novel in Rankin’s long-running Inspector Rebus series. The story places Detective Sergeant John Rebus in Edinburgh, where he investigates a series of child kidnappings and receives threatening messages connected to his own past.

The title refers to a childhood game and to the novel’s themes of memory, secrecy, and buried trauma. Later books develop Rebus into a Detective Inspector and expand the series’ portrait of Edinburgh, moving between its historic streets, police institutions, criminal networks, and political pressures.

A common mix-up is to identify Black and Blue as the first Rebus novel. It is one of the best-known entries and won the 1997 Crime Writers’ Association Macallan Gold Dagger, but it is the eighth book in the series. Rankin eventually wrote more than 20 novels featuring Rebus.