Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Book Club podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor of The Spectator.

And this week, you're going to hear a live event, a recording held at the recent Braymar Literary Festival,

where I'm in conversation with a crime writer Ian Rankin, Sir Ian Rankin,

as he now is, talking about his new Rebus novel, A Heart Full of Headstones.

Hello everybody. I hope you've all got your mobile phones turned off because there'll be

violent altercation,

if anyone goes off in the middle.

It's normally mine actually, or Ian's.

So we're going to start by giving you a world-exclusive flavor of Ian's new book, A Heartful of

Headstones, which is the latest Rebus adventure,

and it begins with Rebus in a situation in which he isn't completely familiar.

So Ian's going to read a page or two, and then I'll ask him some inane questions.

John Rebus had been in court plenty of times, but this was his first time in the dock.

As the charge was being read out for the jury's benefit, he took it all in.

Things hadn't yet recovered from COVID.

Apart from the judge and Rebus, everyone was masked, and there were cameras and monitors everywhere.

The jury were being housed elsewhere, a cinema on Lothian Road, as a health precaution.

He could see them, courtesy of one of the large monitors, just as they could see him.

He tried to remember his first time giving evidence in a case, but couldn't.

It would have been in the 1970s, not quite half a century ago. The lawyers,

court officials and judge had probably looked much the same. Today, Rebus was flanked by two

uniform guards, as would have been the case back then. He'd been in a witness box once when

...