Scots author Ian Rankin has teased Rebus fans by Tweeting a picture of his new manuscript.
But avid readers were struggling for clues about the latest detective novel as the pages were shown side-on.
Some urged the author to “hurry up” and accused him of being a “tease” .
Rankin warned his followers: “The book will be as long as it needs to be and take as long as necessary”.
Last month, Rankin, 54, took to Twitter to reveal that his world-famous Edinburgh detective is coming out of retirement once again.
He has previously spoken about the difficulty of letting go of Rebus.
Tweeting yesterday (Friday) the author said: “Update on my new book – here’s the first draft so far…”
Impatient fan Neal Dobby replied: “Please hurry up……no pressure. Looking forward to reading it.”
Another, called Richard, said: “Can’t wait! Seems ages since last one. Scheduled for autumn release?”
Eric Hamilton added: “*tease*”
While follower Sarah Graham urged Rankin to give more details.
She wrote: “Are we talkin’ double-sided, single-space, 10 point font? Or single-sided, triple-space, 14 pt.? Need to know how excited to get.”
A few minutes later exasperated Rankin took to Twitter once again to silence his impatient fans.
He wrote: “I don’t do page counts or word counts while I’m writing – the book will be as long as it needs to be and take as long as necessary.”
The Tweet got a round of applause from some fans including from Fiachlá Nó Bhreánchú who responded: “That is such a brave statement.”
But cheeky Darren McNaney commented: “We’ll see what your editor has to say about that!”
