The Beat Goes On: The Complete Rebus Short Stories is an anthology of all the Inspector Rebus short stories (30) by Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin, plus the novella Death Is Not the End; though the Rebus short story "Well Shot" published in 2nd Culprit (1993) is not included. It is Rankin's third collection of short stories.
History Published in 2014, the paperback version published in 2015 includes two stories not in the hardback edition; a new story, "Cinders", written for Christmas 2014, and an old story from his files, "My Shopping Day", which was first published in Herbert in Motion and Other Stories (1997).
The first story, "Dead and Buried", is set in the mid-1980s when Rebus was "learning the ropes" at Summerhall Police Station. "The Very Last Drop" is set during a tour of a brewery immediately after Rebus's retirement in Exit Music, a retirement present from Siobhan Clarke who goes with him (written to be read aloud at a charity night at Edinburgh's Caledonian Brewery). "The Very Last Drop" was written to help the work of Royal Blind.Preface, page 1
All the twelve Rebus stories in A Good Hanging and Other Stories are included: they cover a chronological year in Rebus's life; "Playback" in March, "A Good Hanging" in August during the Festival Fringe and "Auld Lang Syne" in December. Also included are the seven Rebus stories in Beggars Banquet, which has 14 other stories, 21 in total. There are six uncollected stories from magazines and newspapers, often for a Christmas issue so set in the festive season. There are two new stories, "The Passenger" and "A Three-Pint Problem".
In the preface and "Rankin on Rebus",pages 595–609 Rankin discusses Rebus and writing him.
The book'scopyright informationFurther Copyright Information (pages 610–611) gives the year of first publication, and where published. Up till about 1997 they are ©Ian Rankin, and then they are ©John Rebus Limited.
In the notes, "AGH" indicates that the story was first published in A Good Hanging and Other Stories in 1992. "BB" indicates that the story was included in Beggars Banquet (2002), but these stories had been previously published elsewhere in magazines or newspapers.
Featured short stories:
Year Title Notes 2013 "Dead and Buried" 1990 "Playback" 1992 "The Dean Curse" AGH 1992 "Being Frank" AGH 1992 "Concrete Evidence" AGH 1992 "Seeing Things" AGH 1992 "A Good Hanging" AGH 1992 "Tit For Tat" AGH 1992 "Not Provan" AGH 1992 "Sunday" AGH 1992 "Auld Lang Syne" AGH 1992 "The Gentlemen's Club" AGH 1992 "Monstrous Trumpet" AGH 1997 "My Shopping Day" 1991 "Talk Show" BB 1992 "Trip Trap" BB 1993 "Castle Dangerous" BB 1992 "In The Frame" BB 1994 "Facing The Music" BB 1995 "Window of Opportunity" BB 1998 "Death Is Not the End" BB 2000 "No Sanity Clause" BB 2003 "Tell Me Who to Kill" 2002 "Saint Nicked" 2005 "Atonement" 2005 "Not Just Another Saturday" 2010 "Penalty Clause" 2014 "The Passenger" 2014 "A Three-Pint Problem" 2010 "The Very Last Drop" 2014 "Cinders"
References