The Flood

Uncorrected Proof. 8vo. Pp. xvi, 207, [1, blank]. Pictorial wraps. Re-issue of the author's debut novel originally published in 1986 by Polygon, a student-run press at Edinburgh University in a limited print run of 300 hardbacks (200 according to the author) and 750 trade paperbacks. With a new introduction by the author.

Signed by Rankin to the title page with his knots and crosses motif at the 5th Agatha Crime Festival in Athens, on his 64th birthday. "I barely knew what I was doing then," he told us, spotting his younger self on the proof's cover.

A coming-of-age story set in a decaying mining village in Fife, Scotland, where the author was born and raised. Written while he was working towards his doctorate in Scottish literature, it "started life as a short story, but soon took on a life of its own". While not an Inspector Rebus novel, it nevertheless clearly displays some of the latter series' characteristic trademark elemental themes.