I'm not sure what brought me to Ian Rankin's extensive and very excellent Rebus series, but I can be pretty certain about the circumstances. It would almost certainly have been a visit to Townsville, and a browse through the two bookstores in Stockland Plaza, and if it wasn't it would have been a similar visit to Mary Who in the Flinders Street Mall.
Usually in those circumstances we set 'Er Indoors loose on the shopping trail while Hughesy cools his heels in a book shop. We don't head off to those environments all that often, and when we do I usually end up wandering out with large quantities of reading matter, so if the recollections of exact circumstances are a little blurred, that's hardly a surprising turn of events.
Back in the time frame we're looking at, I was still in the work force hauling in a wage and a bookstore spend of less than $100 was a rarity. In most cases it was a matter of putting things back because the credit card wasn't going to be able to handle that much action (and in many cases there was at least one more book shop on the day's itinerary).
Under those circumstances I was interested in extracting the maximum possible bang for the buck, and big thick Orion three-in-one omnibus volumes represented value for money.
They tend to be weighty, wrist-unfriendly tomes but value for money nonetheless.
So my introduction to Rankin and Rebus came in the form of a whopping bundle comprising 1995's Let it Bleed, 1997's Black and Blue and the following year's The Hanging Garden, which are respectively #'s 7, 8 and 9 in the seventeen volume series.
Over the intervening years I've picked up a number of other titles in the series, and at the time of writing I'm poised on the edge of the abyss about to start working through the series in order. That's going to be a long term project, and may take years to complete, but I've made a start.
Inspector Rebus:
Knots and Crosses (1987)
Hide and Seek (1991)
Tooth and Nail (1992)
Strip Jack (1992)
A Good Hanging and Other Stories (1992)
The Black Book (1993)
Mortal Causes (1994)
Let it Bleed (1995)
Black and Blue (1997)
The Hanging Garden (1998)
Dead Souls (1999)
Set in Darkness (2000)
The Falls (2001)
Resurrection Men (2002)
A Question of Blood (2003)
Fleshmarket Close (2004)
The Naming of the Dead (2006)
Exit Music (2007)
Malcolm Fox:
The Complaints (2009)
The Impossible Dead (2011)
Other titles:
The Flood (1986)
Watchman (1988)
Westwind (1990)
Witch Hunt (1993, as Jack Harvey)
Bleeding Hearts (1994, as Jack H)arvey)
Blood Hunt (1995, as Jack Harvey
Beggars Banquet (2002, Short Stories)
Doors Open (2008)
A Cool Head (2009, Quick Reads 2009)
Dark Entries (2009, Graphic Vertigo Crime featuring John Constantine)
Non-fiction:
Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey (2005)
