Ian Rankin

Interviewed in The Independent, Ian Rankin defends the crime novel.

"Literary critics still have that knee-jerk reaction that the crime novel looks pre-planned, geometric, everything's worked out, everything's tied up at the end," he argues. "But that's an old-fashioned thing, I like open endings, I leave mine as open as possible. The crime novel is supposed to be structured but it has a mind of its own, and that's why it often attracts literary writers too, like Martin Amis or Julian Barnes. Plenty of them are intrigued by the form."