Although firmly associated with the capital thanks to his two dozen novels featuring Edinburgh detective John Rebus, Ian Rankin’s latest work is set in Glasgow – and the author admits it couldn’t have happened without extensive research among back issues of The Herald.

The 61-year-old turned to the paper's archives to give a period flavour to his new novel, The Dark Remains. It is set in Glasgow in 1972.

“I got lucky in that the National Library of Scotland opened for a short window during lockdown and I managed to book a slot and get in there for a few days to look at the Glasgow Herald for 1972,” he said. "That was invaluable, getting in and seeing what cars were for sale, how much they cost, how much a flat or a house cost, what was on TV that night, what was happening in sport, how the local football teams were doing, what was happening in the world – Upper Clyde Shipbuilders were having their lock in, there was a lot of unrest in Northern Ireland."

In another departure for Rankin, The Dark Remains features not John Rebus but Inspector Jack Laidlaw, the creation of Kilmarnock-born author William McIlvanney. Laidlaw features in three influential novels written between 1977 and 1991 and the trilogy is often cited as the founding work of the so-called ‘Tartan Noir’ genre of crime-writing.

When McIlvanney died in 2015 he left behind an unfinished manuscript for a fourth Laidlaw outing which follows the detective on his first case. It’s this which Rankin has finished. The title is McIlvanney’s but the novel bears both men’s names and is published by Canongate, whose re-issuing of the Laidlaw novels in 2013 won McIlvanney legions of new fans.