The renowned crime writer Ian Rankin was born in 1960 in the village of Cardenden, Fife. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 and, whilst working towards a PhD on modern Scottish fiction, began writing his own books. His first Rebus novel was published in 1987. The Rebus books have been translated into thirty-six languages and have won Rankin numerous awards and international acclaim. For this portrait, the artist Guy Kinder depicted Rankin in Edinburgh’s Oxford Bar – a favourite haunt of both the author and his fictional character, Inspector Rebus.