Crime author Rankin's stage role

Ian Rankin will take part in a live stage show

Best-selling crime writer Ian Rankin is taking to the stage for a series of performances which will include storytelling and live music.

The author, famous for his fictional Edinburgh detective John Rebus, will be accompanied by Scottish musician and novelist Jackie Leven.

The performances will take place in Perth, Kirkcaldy and London in May.

The two men, both from Fife, met after Leven discovered he had been written into Rankin's novel Resurrection Men.

Leven got in touch with Rankin and they resolved to get together to produce a stage show.

The concerns of their work are very similar and both write about hard-nosed characters who, while falling apart in many ways, retain their dignity and humanity.

If you want to tell the reader a lot about a character in a small space, just tell them what their musical taste is Ian Rankin

Rankin said this latest project was his chance to further express the love of music which his works show.

"The music is a good shorthand way to delineate character," he said.

"If you want to tell the reader a lot about a character in a small space, just tell them what their musical taste is.

"You'll get their age, their background, whether they're gregarious or a loner."

The show, Jackie Leven Said, features musical interludes and new songs from Leven, together with three new studio tracks - one of which imagines scenes from the inner world of Rankin's Rebus character.