Someone obviously wasn’t paying attention

So it’s basically all Ian Rankin, all the time now–FLESHMARKET CLOSE is out, he’s packing the bookstores, and preparing for another gargantuan-sized book tour. But evidently a Scottish WPC managed to keep her head buried in the sand, ostrich-style–because how else to explain this?

RED-FACED police tried to sign up Scotland’s best known crimefighter Ian Rankin to join the force.

Recruiting officers from Lothian and Borders police approached Rankin at a city festival where they had a stand.

A WPC, who failed to recognise the famous author, asked him if he fancied a change of career and encouraged him to sign up.

Last night, Rankin, whose new book Fleshmarket Close comes out next week, said that he told the cop he fancied amateur sleuthing.

He said: ‘At first I thought she was winding me up but she persisted. I told her I didn’t think Lothian and Borders Police had got so desperate that they would want a pot-bellied 44-year-old but she insisted that older recruits were all the rage these days.

‘I did say that I thought of myself as a bit of an amateur detective.’

The dozy WPC only twigged that something was up when her two male colleagues started laughing.

I think I may still be giggling about this when I buy Rankin a drink at Bouchercon…