Ian Rankin

Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author. Winner of an Edgar Award and the recipient of a Gold Dagger for fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

From his May 2012 Q & A with the Guardian:

Who's your favourite writer?

I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread – Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks …

What are your other inspirations?

Inspiration comes from many places: I find stories in newspapers, and sometimes someone tells me an anecdote in the pub that gets me thinking. People also write to me suggesting ideas for novels and characters. In the early days, I just had a hunger to get published. Later, there was the hunger to...[read on]

Learn about Ian Rankin's five favorite literary crime novels and the best selling book he wishes he'd written.

Read J. Kingston Pierce's 2000 interview with Rankin at January Magazine.

--Marshal Zeringue