IAN RANKIN (b.1960)
Hide & Seek. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1991.
First edition, signed on the title and annotated with 766 words on 69 pages. Hide & Seek is the second of Rankin's classic series of Inspector Rebus crime novels: in it, Rebus investigates the death of a junkie, ultimately connecting it with a society scandal and with the double nature of Edinburgh itself. Rankin's attentive annotations touch on the jacket design, the writing of the book 'in my little flat in Tottenham, while I worked as a hi-fi journalist', the book's echoes of Jekyll and Hyde ('pretty much the overarching theme of the early Rebus novels ... "public probity & private vice"'), the fictionalised Edinburgh setting, the accidental parallels with Trainspotting, and the sources and inspirations for specific details. Many of the annotations comment on ways in which Rebus's character differs from his later incarnations: 'Rebus is much more bookish/literate in the early novels. A bit too similar to his creator?'; 'I tend to forget that in these early novels Rebus is a church-goer...'; 'Rebus's sexual identity in the early books is complex'. Facing the last page is a more extended note, reflecting on the novel's parallels with a real-life scandal, and more generally on its setting: 'A sordid story – much less shocking than its predecessor. Effective, I think, in showing the Jekyll & Hyde side of Edinburgh at that time. Jaded, stately Edinburgh about to change rapidly...'.

Octavo. Original red cloth, gilt lettering to spine, pictorial dust jacket.

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