 Both share a Glasgow setting and involve the investigations by Glasgow police into murders.The world-view of Tartan Noir tends toward the cynical and world-weary, typically "hard-boiled".Many of the protagonists in Tartan Noir stories are anti-heroes, with readers not automatically being expected to sympathise with them – an illustrative example appears in Ian Rankin's "Knots and Crosses" when Inspector Rebus blatantly steals bread rolls and milk from a shop, without apology or remorse.