The whole story of how the books about Martin Beck came to be is told here. It's a love story. A young couple wanted to talk about the injustices in society. Thus was born the modern detective story. It has been over 50 years since the first book in the series came out and it would only be in the fall of the age that Sjöwall Wahlöö was celebrated as the creator of the entire modern detective genre.
Crime writer Ian Rankin invites BBC to follow him as he writes his next novel, and as he ponders what to write about after retiring his most famous creation, Rebus.
Crime writer Ian Rankin investigates The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Starting with Robert Louis Stevenson's nightmare in September 1885, Rankin traces the roots of this story, which stretches back to Stevenson's childhood. Grave-robbers, hallucinatory drugs and prostitution all play their part in the disturbing account of Henry Jekyll's double-life, as Rankin's journey takes him into the yeasty draughts and unlit closes of the city that inspired the tale - Edinburgh.
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