The legions of followers of Inspector Rebus, the fictional detective, will be aware of his creator’s love of music – it’s a theme running throughout Ian Rankin’s works. Indeed, the titles of his books are all inspired either by song lyrics or album titles.

“A lot of the writers I know are frustrated rock stars or musicians, so when we get the chance to put music in our books, we do. That’s how [folk singer] Jackie Leven and I started working together. He was a fan of the books and he saw that my Inspector Rebus was listening to a Jackie Leven album. He phoned my publisher and said, ‘Can you put me in touch with Ian?’”

The pair produced an album together in 2005 – a mixture of spoken word and music so, he says, “for a week or two, I could walk into a record store and find myself on the racks. It was very exciting.”

Rankin’s first Inspector Rebus novel was published in 1987; the series now numbers 19 books that have been translated into 36 languages. This fame has led to book tours that feed Rankin’s curiosity for music from around the globe: “I’m going out to Greece in November, and the journalists who interview you, once they know you’re interested in music, they’ll say, ‘Oh, have you listened to this?’ That happens all over the world.”

Greece is a particular favourite of the author, so fittingly the first track he has chosen is by Kristi Stassinopoulou and Stathis Kalyviotis. “They take traditional music but give it a modern spin … I like that they used to play in a punk band together. That tickles me – that they started off as punks, segued into more traditional music and then decided to bring something a bit more modern to it.”

Elsewhere, Rankin chose BeauSoleil, from Lafayette. His love of music from Louisiana came after watching 80s film The Big Easy. “I went to New Orleans in the early 90s for the first time and really got into the music. It strips away all the pretensions – it’s there for people to have a good time and to commune with each other.”

It was the intriguing geographical combination of AfroCubism that initially piqued his interest. “African music, Cuban music – how’s that going to work?” Rankin wondered. “On the surface they seem like two very different traditions, but the wonderful thing is that it shows you that the music of the world is connected, and so when you put Malian musicians together with Cuban musicians, there is a connection straight away.”

Another of his picks is by the Good Ones, a band who emerged out of post-genocide Rwanda, which he chose after hearing a news report about them. “You could listen to the music without knowing the back story but it really gives more emotional depth if you know where they come from.”

Another band to make an impact with their back story are Tinariwen. “When you start to learn that the band had to flee from a conflict in their homeland, and the album was recorded in America without all the members there … there’s a real depth behind it.”

“It’s amazing when you start looking at world music, you find that there’s a political element to almost all of this; that the music came from revolution, or the music was revolutionary and therefore the authorities didn’t like it … if you do a little bit of digging you find out more and more about the culture.”

“There’s an awful lot of good music out there,” he observes, but acknowledges that it’s not always easy to find. “It’s almost becoming more difficult because, although all the music in the world is on your doorstep, thanks to the internet, it’s a huge swamp and picking your way through it is time consuming.”

“I still depend on reviews and word of mouth. Sometimes something catches your eye and you decide to take a punt. Friends will tell me things they think I should listen to, and when I go on tour people will hand me little mix tapes or give me CDs from local musicians.”

Rankin says he’s lucky to live in Edinburgh where there are still a handful of decent record shops; many of them know him and will make recommendations to him. “We’ve got a little place called Coda Music who specialise in folk and traditional music, but they’ve also just opened a little room at the back, which is nothing but new vinyl, and I do like my vinyl.”

Rankin also uses social media for discovering new music. “In the past, if there was a musician you admired, how the hell did you let them know? Now you can find their Twitter feed and you can get a message to them.

“Musicians and writers, there’s a connection there. We’re trying to send a message to the world, we’re trying to get across our personality and we’re trying to entertain at the same time.”