Ian Rankin has said he was banned from writing sex scenes involving his famous detective Rebus.
The author revealed he had penned a passage involving the Edinburgh police officer in bed with a woman in one of his early novels.
However, his editor insisted the scene was removed as he didn’t think it would go down well with readers.
Fife-born Rankin was told to avoid any graphic descriptions of sex in his books and leave it to the reader’s imagination.
He said: “There is not much romance in my books.
“In the third novel, when I was very young, I did put a sex scene in. I thought, ‘If you’re going to do crime novels there should be a bit of sex in there as well’.
"I had Rebus having sex and my editor said ‘No, please don’t. For God’s sake, leave us at the bedroom door and leave something to the reader’s imagination.’”
Rankin, 60, also told how female fans of his books have wanted to tell him what they get up to in bed.
Speaking on the Cultural Coven podcast, he said: “Years and years ago when I was living in France I did get letters sent to me via my publisher in London from a woman who said she felt like a character in a Rebus novel.
“These were all long, handwritten letters which would always eventually get on to her sex life.”
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