The retirement of Rebus

No place for him in Scotland’s new McCop megaforce

Here is an intro to get all Scottish Nationalists fuming about London media bias: Alex Salmond is abolishing John Rebus. Well, all right — this recalcitrant Scots detective never actually existed in the first place. And even in fiction, he’s been drawing his generous public-sector pension for some time now.

But if Scotland’s First Minister reads crime novels, he will know that many of the successful ones depend as much on place as on character and plot — Conan ­Doyle’s clattering Victorian London, Morse’s Oxford, and a Rebus Edinburgh that keeps tourist board officials awake at night.

In Mr Salmond’s new model Scotland, Rebus would never have been born. His employer, Lothian and Borders Police, constantly mentioned in the novels, is about to be closed down. In a Bill now going through the Scottish Parliament, he and all his colleagues are being merged into a new, single, pan-Scottish megaforce.