The 20 greatest TV cop shows of all time 19. Rebus (2000-09)

Ian Rankin says he has never watched any of the television adaptions of his famously brooding, heavy drinking, loner detective because he didn’t want the actors’ faces replacing how he envisaged Rebus in his head. Two actors have played Rebus on screen, John Hannah and Ken Stott. Hannah gives the role his best but was probably too young and lacked the cynical gravitas that Stott gave to Rebus. With similar roles in The Vice and Messiah giving Stott an identifiable acting persona, he perhaps has the same problem as Humphrey Bogart being too much like Bogart to play the definitive Philip Marlowe, but in the absence of any other candidates, Stott is just fine. Rankin’s central theme of the Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy of Scotland’s capital city remains intact, and as in the novels, the real star of the show is of course, Edinburgh itself in all its historic beauty, showing the dark underbelly of the city behind the chintz curtains.