Order of Inspector Rebus Books
Inspector Rebus is a character and series of detective fiction novels by Scottish author Ian Rankin. The police procedural series is considered to fall into the Scottish Tartan Noir subgenre. The Detective Inspector John Rebus character is based in Edinburgh. Unlike other series, the character does age with time, as the character turned 60 years old with Exit Music. The series was adapted to the British TV series Rebus.
Ian Rankin started the Inspector Rebus series with Knots and Crosses in 1987. The series is incredibly popular in the United Kingdom, making up 10% of crime fiction sales there. Below is a list of all of Ian Rankin’s Inspector Rankin books in order of when they were originally published:
Publication Order of Inspector Rebus Books
| Knots and Crosses | (1987) |    |
| Hide and Seek | (1991) | |
| Tooth and Nail / Wolfman | (1992) | |
| Strip Jack | (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 Alley / Fleshmarket Close | (2004) | |
| The Naming of the Dead | (2006) | |
| Exit Music | (2007) | |
| Standing in Another Man's Grave | (2012) | |
| Saints of the Shadow Bible | (2013) | |
| Even Dogs in the Wild | (2015) | |
| Rather Be the Devil | (2016) | |
| In a House of Lies | (2018) | |
| A Song for the Dark Times | (2020) | |
| A Heart Full of Headstones | (2022) | |
Publication Order of Inspector Rebus Short Stories/Novellas
(By: Ian Rankin, Peter James)
| A Good Hanging | (1992) | |
| Death is Not the End | (1998) | |
| A Good Hanging and Other Stories | (2003) | |
| In the Nick of Time | (2014) | |
| The Beat Goes On | (2014) | |
| Long Shadows (Play) | (2019) | |
Notes: Tooth and Nail was originally titled Wolfman. Fleshmarket Close was titled Fleshmarket Alley in the USA.