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.'" Characters See List of Inspector Rebus characters. The unifying point of view in the Rebus series is, of course, that of John Rebus, with the point of view sometimes shifting to colleagues, criminals or suspects. Among the colleagues, the most important is Siobhan Clarke, whose point of view is often as fully represented as Rebus's in the novels beginning with Set in Darkness (2000). The character allowed critics to approach the Rebus series from a feminist point of view. When Rankin wrote a novel in which Rebus himself retired, Exit Music (2007), there was speculation that the series would continue with Clarke as the main protagonist; the suggestion of Mark Lawson, that new Rebus novels would feature "Rebus playing Hannibal Lecter to her Agent Clarice Starling," is not completely outrageous, since in some of the later novels--e.g. In a House of Lies (2018) and A Heart Full of Headstones (2022)--Rebus is not only trying to advise her on her cases but is under investigation himself. However, when Rebus retired in Exit Music, Rankin instead wrote two novels set in the same world of Edinburgh policing, but from the point of view of Malcolm Fox, an Inspector with Internal Affairs. Although these novels, The Complaints and The Impossible Dead, are usually excluded from the Rebus series, Fox became a significant character in the Rebus novels when they resumed in 2012 with Standing in Another Man's Grave. He represents a point of view in which Rebus's maverick attitudes are not merely outmoded or superseded, but potentially criminal; however, after he becomes acquainted with Rebus, he recognizes that the older man did have standards of his own. Rankin used the point of view of the criminals being pursued by Rebus effectively in early novels like Knots and Crosses and Tooth and Nail but seems to have dropped this device. In some of the later novels, Rebus's nemesis, the gangster 'Big Ger' Cafferty, is a point of view character; often the glimpse of his thoughts allows the reader to understand the strange relationship between the two not-quite-retired men. However, Cafferty's point of view usually confirms that he is even more evil than Rebus imagines. The young gangster Darryl Christie, who appears in four novels from 2012-2016, is another effectively