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Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Welcome!Well, who else did you expect to see on the cover? Benedict Cumberbatch is set to return in SHERLOCK this New Year’s Day. During the filming of the fourth series, Crime Scene got to go behind the scenes with the fabulous Baker Street boy. Read on for an extensive (and spoiler-free) report featuring the cast and crew, who seem just as giddy about the show’s return as the rest of us. That’s just one of several huge series to invite us on set, including DEATH IN PARADISE, SILENT WITNESS, STAN LEE’S LUCKY MAN, MODUS (the big new Nordic Noir) and NO OFFENCE. This issue, Crime Scene also celebrates 20 years of JONATHAN CREEK, although he’s still got a way to go to match Holmes for longevity. So this month the…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006LIFE OF BRYANFor fans of Breaking Bad, Bryan Cranston’s new autobiography, A Life In Parts, provides a revealing insight into how the co-star of family favourite Malcolm In The Middle transformed himself into a crystal meth kingpin. Not to mention how, along with ’Bad creator Vince Gilligan, he inadvertently changed how people actually watch TV. “When Vince told me he was going to take the central character from good to bad, to be honest I wondered whether audiences would go for it,” he writes. “In the end, they didn’t just go for it. They were addicted.” When it first aired in 2008, the show was a critical but not a ratings success, yet interest soon snowballed and it became a major box-set bingeing experience. It’s now one of the most eagerly devoured…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006KEEPING IT REALMaking a period-set gangster movie stand out from the crowd is no mean feat. Thankfully, the production designer on Live By Night, had it relatively easy. “I was fortunate to be handed material that did not take place in somewhere like Chicago,” explains Jess Gonchor. Scripted, starring and directed by Ben Affleck, the film is adapted from Dennis Lehane’s acclaimed novel, set in 1920s Prohibition America. It’s Affleck’s second Lehane adaptation, following his 2007 directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone. The film concerns Joe Coughlin (Affleck), the gangster son of a Boston Police Deputy Superintendent, who heads to Florida to establish a new power base. “I’d never seen a gangster movie that took place somewhere other than New York, Chicago, Boston – those type of big metropolises,” says Gonchor. “Two thirds…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CUTTING EDGE“I’m going to show you photographs you’ve never seen before in this case, because I have things that other people don’t” When Patricia Cornwell visited the University of Leicester on her recent book tour, she did it in style. The US author donned a Leicester City F.C. shirt and scarf for her lecture – you can see the sartorial evidence on the university’s YouTube channel – as it turns out that the academic institution was fundamental in the creation of her iconic character, Dr Kay Scarpetta. “It’s where DNA fingerprinting was discovered and invented,” Cornwell tells Crime Scene. “So that’s a really big deal in my profession, because I heard about that the very first time I went to see a morgue in 1984. This medical examiner said, ‘there’s this…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006IN THEIR OWN WORDS“Nobody else is doing a series like this one” I never wanted to write about a vicar who solves crimes – that’s what the police do, and crime is never cosy. I did, however, want to deal as authentically as possible with the work of an exorcist. They do exist, in every diocese – the Anglican church just doesn’t advertise the service they provide and some elements in the Church would like to get rid of them. Merrily now gets on better with the cops than the C of E hierarchy, basically because they’re not in competition. ITV’s Midwinter Of The Spirit went down much better with viewers who hadn’t read the novels. Anna Maxwell Martin and David Threlfall were spot on as Merrily and her…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Lisa Cutts DETECTIVE CONSTABLETHE REALITY The first few days of a murder are manic and, depending on the role allocated to me, I may finish work after 18 hours, get four hours’ sleep and then do it all again. Interviewing prisoners is always days of work with very late finishes. The reality is 20 minutes of heart-racing, adrenalin-filled action, followed by weeks of paperwork. Mostly, I work on murders and rapes, although the department also deals with kidnaps, blackmail and large-scale, protracted investigations. It can include arresting and interviewing suspects, taking witness statements, travelling the county – or the country – to make enquiries and, of course, months of paperwork. Many of my colleagues have bought my books, some have even read them. I’ve had a great deal of support from work, although…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006URBAN MYTH“ Châtelet’s rude, tough and strong, wearing a pair of pants and a gun ” A psychological thriller that’s likely to have you hooked from its opening scene, French series The Passenger features the grisly work of a serial killer who borrows from Greek mythology. Based on a novel by Gallic author Jean-Christophe Grangé, the latest foreign language TV drama from Walter Presents begins with the discovery of a dead man wearing a bull’s head at the Gare de Bordeaux-Saint-Jean. Captain Anaïs Châtelet, who leads the investigation, has shades of Spiral’s no-nonsense Parisian detective Laure Berthaud. “Châtelet’s rude, tough and strong. She’s wearing a pair of pants and a gun,” says Raphaëlle Agogué, regarding her character in The Passenger, a show that she describes as “ambitious”. French viewers were gripped…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE FIRST DETECTIVEWho was British fiction’s first great detective? Here’s a clue: lanky bloke, some odd habits but a brilliant deductive reasoner, one with a fondness for making epigrammatic pronouncements and mysterious remarks. Well, as is so often the case in crime fiction, the obvious answer isn’t the correct one. I would claim that the first great detective was Sergeant Cuff, who appeared in Wilkie Collins’ novel The Moonstone (1868), almost two decades before Dr John H Watson first encountered Mr Sherlock Holmes in a lab at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet (1887). The Moonstone proved popular but it wasn’t until the advent of Mr. Holmes that detective fiction became recognised as a genre, and one that the public were always going to be clamouring for…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006LAW & DISORDERThe precinct thrums with a purposeful energy. Officers are hunched over computer screens, perusing impenetrable lists of data; in a corner, a small knot of detectives speak in hushed tones, chewing over important clues. A uniformed copper strides out of the inspector’s office carrying important-looking files under his arm. Then the familiarity of this tableau is instantly shattered as, in a corner office with windows, in full view of everyone, a glamorous, middle-aged woman in heels takes off her red dress to reveal a slinky black slip underneath. Stranger still, while disrobing the woman continues the meeting that she was having with a male colleague, as if she hadn’t just stripped down to her smalls, in full view of him and 20 colleagues… Crime Scene hasn’t yet mentioned the cameras,…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006SECOND TIME LUCKY“Doing this show is knackering,” grumbles James Nesbitt, but he can’t help grinning as he says it. He’s taking a few minutes to chat to Crime Scene while shooting the second season of Stan Lee’s Lucky Man, and though he’s working to a gruelling schedule, one which won’t let up until Christmas, Nesbitt is clearly enjoying himself. And judging by the general mood on the set, he isn’t the only one, either. When the supernatural crime drama first aired in January 2016, it soon found its audience, becoming Sky 1’s most successful original drama to date. And that success has given the production company, Carnival Films, licence to kick things up a notch for Series 2. So it’s no wonder that Crime Scene finds Nesbitt smiling. To recap, the first…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006ISLAND LIFEAre you excited about the new series? There are some fabulous murders this year. We’re always trying to challenge ourselves to come up with new and exciting ways to kill people – if that doesn’t seem too macabre. How many episodes have you written? I only wrote the London-based episodes, as we knew that they were going to be quite a challenge. After all these years of having a Brit abroad in the Caribbean, I couldn’t wait to show what it would be like bringing the Caribbean to London. What has been the reaction to your novels featuring DI Richard Poole? Fans of the show are generally thrilled to discover that Richard and Camille [Bordey] get to live on in standalone novels. After all, we’re all used to Agatha Christie…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006MISSION PROFILEDavid Callan, an outcast secret agent, revisits his former department for talks. The ‘Section’ exists to deal with undesirables, people in ‘Red Files’. Its supervisor, Hunter, offers to reinstate Callan but first he must carry out a killing. He mus t do this within one week, without help and without asking why. His target is Rudolf Schneider, a German busines sman with whom he’s already acquainted; Hunter has engineered Callan’s placement in a company in the same office building. Callan suspects Hunter’s offer isn’t genuine and takes a liking to the extrovert German, as they share an interest in war gaming. Nevertheless, he orders an illicit gun from Lonely, an old criminal associate. Meres, a Section operative, keeps watch on Callan. Needing to know why Hunter wants Schneider killed, Callan…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 00065 READS GRIPPING1 KILLING FLOOR (1997) Lee Child arrived with this novel, which introduced mysterious drifter Jack Reacher. The former military cop gets off a Greyhound bus in Georgia and is soon accused of murder. Reacher’s brother is part of the plot of this stylish and essential debut. 2 PERSUADER (2003) The series’ seventh outing is memorable for being written in the first person and featuring a villain even taller and tougher than Reacher. Child’s revenge thriller involves a staged kidnapping which enables Reacher to infiltrate a criminal organisation. 3 THE AFFAIR (2011) Reacher investigates the murder of a soldier’s girlfriend near a Mississippi army base. If you’re a Child fan who’s desperate for Reacher’s backstory, this prequel is set six months before Killing Floor and explains why he left the military.…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006RIPPER STREET S4Set in 1897, amid Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, Series 4 of Ripper Street is dominated by a familiar storyline from the previous season. ‘Long Susan’ Hart (MyAnna Buring) is in Newgate Prison, awaiting execution for her role in the Leman Street rail disaster. Writer and creator Richard Warlow is surely not about to kill off one his biggest stars right at the start? Ripper Street couldn’t manage without Matthew Macfadyen, either. His character, Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, soon returns from self-imposed exile in a seaside retreat to rejoin the police in Whitechapel, although he’s now serving under the formerly thuggish Bennet Drake (Jerome Flynn). The duo’s awkward role reversal has them regularly squabbling over cases that have connections to both. As with Peaky Blinders, part of the pleasure of…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006NATIONAL TREASURE“There are layers of you, aren’t there?” says Julie Walters’ Marie, peering into the face of her comedian husband, Paul Finchley (Robbie Coltrane), in this sharp-edged Channel 4 drama. The crack casting allows those layers and more to be assiduously peeled away during writer Jack Thorne’s forensic, focused drama, based upon the sensationalist scenarios prompted by the police’s Operation Yewtree. Coltrane invests great nuance in Finchley, a much-loved stalwart of British light entertainment who’s accused of rape and sex with a minor. Conveying both threat and comfort-TV cosiness, Coltrane superbly sustains Finchley’s ambiguity, which is artfully framed by Marc Munden’s heightened direction and Cristobal Tapia de Veer’s spooked score. Thorne also scrupulously explores Finchley’s tellingly fraught family crises (aided by controlled work from Walters and Andrea Riseborough), the public/private divide,…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006DCI BANKS S5DCI Banks has always been a solid, satisfying procedural, which sees the brooding Yorkshire landscape accentuating the loneliness of the workaholic copper. But the stakes are even higher in this outing, featuring a simmering story arc in which the dogged detective (Stephen Tompkinson) is circling property mogul Steve Richards (Shaun Dooley). Banks, like former ITV mainstay Morse, has no time for spivvy businessmen, especially when they’ve escaped a murder rap. With cases involving teenage suicide, a murder within the Chinese community in Leeds and the inevitable, final showdown between Banks and Richards, the two-part format builds the suspense and keeps you guessing. The direction isn’t flashy, though there are several stylish sequences (including a tense ransom delivery that doesn’t go to plan) and plenty of procedural nitty-gritty, particularly from the…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006FILM ROUND-UPActed, directed and scored to the hilt, David Mackenzie’s neowestern heist drama, HELL OR HIGH WATER, bulges with muscle and pedigree. Mackenzie maintains the clout of his British prison movie, Starred Up, as he transfers to Texas for the tale of bank-robbing brothers and the cops tailing them. Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges – channelling Rooster Cogburn – make deeply invested work of Sicario writer Taylor Sheridan’s morally meaty script, which bristles with achingly current themes of poverty, property issues and corrupt banking practices. As doom looms, Nick Cave and Warren Ellis prove just the right men to soundtrack the way to the grimly tense climax. The amoral pleasures mount in DOG EAT DOG (out 2 January), where a customarily un-muzzled Nicolas Cage banks an atypically decent role.…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006BEYOND THE TRUTHThe Stahlbergs are a rich Oslo family who find their dynasty reduced when three of them are discovered dead at their home. There’s also a fourth dead body, who isn’t a family member, and it’s down to tenacious copper Hanne Wilhelmsen to delve into the Stahlbergs’ troubled past, to identify the mystery corpse and uncover who’s behind the vicious killings. She quickly discovers that there are multiple reasons why various members of the family wanted each other dead. For some time, the Norwegian crime queen’s novels have flown under the radar for many British readers, even confirmed fans of Nordic Noir, but that situation has now been remedied, and her remarkably consistent books are finally enjoying the attention they deserve. Beyond The Truth is one of her most assured outings.…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006PAINKILLERMonica Wood lives a life of torment, as she’s been left with constant and debilitating neuropathic pain after being pushed down some hospital stairs by an unknown assailant. Her condition and the associated drug treatments also cloud Wood’s memory of everything since the incident. Handily, plot-wise, this allows Fountain, in his debut psychological thriller, to weave plenty of hazy intrigue and red herrings around a suicide note which she can’t recall writing and Wood’s dawning suspicion that her husband, Dominic, is plotting to murder her. Painkiller falls foul of many pitfalls which afflict debut novels. Fountain mistakes regular mentions of Monica’s breasts for ‘female perspective’ and a bathroom scene for ‘gritty realism’. Both prose and dialogue often clunk like bricks down a stairwell, although any appearance by Monica’s cruelly witty…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006HOUSE OF BONESThere’s something immensely likeable about Hauxwell’s private eye, Catherine Berlin, and it’s because of her imperfections rather than despite them. Berlin’s a loner with serious trust issues, a middle-aged heroin addict who’s haunted by the past and wrestles with her own demons. But this flawed yet tough and tenacious woman is free of the cliches that this scenario may suggest; the way she makes massive mistakes (and even more enemies) as she steamrollers her way through cases is all-too-human. This fourth novel in the series sees Berlin hired for a case involving an orphaned public schoolboy that takes her into the Chinese underworld via shady members of the British aristocracy and their ready supply of opium. Hauxwell writes beautifully about her surroundings, plunging us into London’s history-soaked, gentrified Wapping riverside,…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CRASH LANDAn iconic archetype through much Western fiction, especially crime noir, is the ‘femme fatale’ – the beautiful, mysterious and seductive woman who turns the heroes’ lives upside down. It isn’t an archetype that Scottish author Doug Johnstone, who explores the edges of domestic noir, has used before, but his approach herein is effective and intelligent. The ‘femme’ in question is Maddie Pierce, who steps into the life of jewellery student Finn Sullivan in the departure lounge of Orkney’s airport. “Sometimes life is dramatic,” she tells him, although neither anticipates the horrendous plane crash that follows, leaving seven dead, three — including Finn— injured and Maddie unaccounted for. Johnstone is never an author who wastes time or energy with literary throat-clearing. From the start, it’s clear to the reader, if not…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006RATTLEMissing children are a mainstay of crime fiction, though Fiona Cummins gives that agonising scenario a clever twist in her highly promising debut novel. The nightmarish killer is The Bone Collector, a connoisseur of human skeletons who considers his sinister hobby a family tradition. Stalking victims in South London, he singles out children suffering from conditions which, he imagines, might make good examples for his display case. The prime candidate is a six-year-old boy from Blackheath with a progressive illness known as Stone Man Syndrome, which causes muscles and joints to fuse together to form a second skeleton. Cummins captures the complex emotions between Jakey Frith’s quarrelling parents as they care for their fragile son, whose childish desire to experience life despite the health risks may put him in the…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006BOOKS THE MINEHow far would you go to keep your secrets buried? How deep do you have to bury the past to stop it clawing its way into the present? On the surface, Antti Tuomainen’s titular mine is a literal one. It’s the centre of a plot which sees Helsinki Daily investigative journalist Janne Vuori receiving an anonymous tip about some illegal activity occurring at a nickel mine in northern Finland. But The Mine requires you to dig deeper. Indeed, as Vuori sifts for information, and starts to find himself buried under the weight of revelation, he discovers that the case has a personal element — one which makes the investigation very much his own. Or, to him, “mine”. Of course, the book’s title has a third meaning — let’s just say…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006LOVE MURDERSix years on from her first adventure, in The Killing Lessons, Saul Black picks up the story of Detective Valerie Hart, who remains haunted by her nemesis, the beautiful killer, Katherine Glass. Although Glass is safely behind bars, for the horrific murders in which she played a part, her partner in crime is still on the loose. The second book in Black’s series combines a love story, with the latest gruesome killings interrupting fellow cop Nick Blaskovitch’s attempts to propose to Hart, and the horrific tale of a serial killer on the rampage. As the spate of killings commences, it is clear to Hart that they are connected to the murders from six years ago and, more frighteningly, this time the carnage is very personal. The only chance that Hart…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006SINNER MANLost for nearly half a century, Lawrence Block’s debut crime novel is a bracing blast of early ’60s noir from an author who would go on to become one of the genre’s greats. The Sinner Man in question is Don Barshter, a bored insurance salesman in Connecticut who accidentally kills his wife during a drunken rage. After sitting out the weekend with her body in a cupboard, the remorseless Barshter empties their bank accounts and flees to Buffalo under a new identity, that of Nat Crowley, something as apparently easy as taking a concealed firearm on a plane during the 1960s. Influenced by the gangster movie he skipped work to see on the afternoon of the killing, Barshter/ Crowley also decides on a career change: organised crime. Seeking out trouble…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006FORTITUDE“Fortitude is at the edge of civilisation and of rescue. It’s history is hidden under ice…” CREATED BY: SIMON DONALD STARRING: SOFIE GRABOL, DENNIS QUAID, PARMINDER NAGRA, SIENNA GUILLORY, KEN STOTT, LUKE TREADAWAY (SKY ATLANTIC) 2017 When the creepy Arctic thriller Fortitude launched in 2015, it was reportedly one of the most expensive British dramas ever, costing a reputed £25 million. Featuring Christopher Eccleston, Sofie Grabol, Stanley Tucci and Michael Gambon amid epic frozen landscapes, it seemed like money well spent. The only problem was that, when it came to filming in the Icelandic town of Reydarfjordur, which doubles as Norway, the production had to buy in fake snow. But not for Series 2… “The weather was much more helpful,” creator, writer and executive producer Simon Donald says. “But they…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006ON THE CASE“The people of interest this time around are kind of pillars of society” The new series of ITV’s hit cold-case drama, Unforgotten, begins with a grim discovery: a body in a suitcase that’s been sitting at the bottom of a river. When DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DS Sunil ‘Sunny’ Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) attend the scene, at a picnic spot by the River Lea in North East London, it becomes clear that the corpse, which has been partly preserved by the silt, could have been there for decades. “It was really disturbing,” Nicola Walker (River, Spooks) tells Crime Scene. “Everybody around [during filming] seemed to think it was completely ordinary to be looking at this fat-covered skeleton. I’m not queasy about things like that, but that body was very…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006REBUS ROCKS!With book titles inspired by many of his favourite albums, including Black And Blue and Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones, Ian Rankin is clearly a music obsessive. March 2017 will mark the 30th anniversary of the publication of Knots And Crosses, Rankin’s first novel to feature John Rebus, and the bestselling author is planning a summer festival in Edinburgh dedicated to his detective. “It’s going to be a weekend in late June,” Rankin tells Crime Scene. “There will be some live music, spoken word, maybe a walking tour, a film. Maybe we could show the documentary [BBC One’s 2012 film about Rankin]. “It’s just a chance for fans to get together and celebrate 30 years of Rebus. So we’re still exploring what it might consist of and who…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006HOROWITZ HEADS UP CRIMEFESTAnthony Horowtiz, the Foyle’s War creator and Poirot screenwriter, has been confirmed as a guest speaker at CrimeFest, which will take place at Bristol Marriott Royal Hotel on 18-21 May, 2017. In addition to interviews with guest authors, the event will feature dozens of panels and a total of 100 participating writers, including Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Mick Herron, Sarah Hilary and Ragnar Jónasson. Horowitz will discuss his latest novel, Magpie Murders, which is both a homage to Agatha Christie and a playful investigation into crime fiction. “It’s a meditation on why this genre is still so popular,” he tells Crime Scene. “And it’s also about how whodunits work. It’s not only trying to give you the whodunit, but it’s also trying to show you the way that the writer does it.”…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006DOUBLE TROUBLE“If we hadn’t made it in Welsh, it would be profoundly different” How did you get involved with a film adaptation of Fflur Dafydd’s bestselling Welsh-language novel, Y Llyfrgell ? Fflur contacted me. She was thinking about turning it into a film, which I was really excited by because she had written something that was very cinematic in the first place. So we were soon trying to work out how to condense her epic, sprawling novel — with its many characters, set across a long timespan — into something as succinct as a movie. In the film, Catrin Stewart plays the twins, Ana and Nan – technically, how difficult was it to shoot that? There’s the technical challenge, especially on a tight budget, of having the same…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006ON THE EDGE“They have never encountered such a horrific murder” Would you be up for a second series? It was originally sold to me as a self-contained, eight-part series. But they said that about Broadchurch. We all worked together, in the knowledge that we were making something out of the ordinary. I had an absolute ball working on Paranoid. So I’d be very happy to do it again. What first drew you to Paranoid ? It’s a real page-turner. When I read it, I didn’t necessarily know which way it would go. It starts off as one thing and becomes something very, very different. It’s very unsettling and I knew it wouldn’t be a common or garden police procedural. It’s going to make people think and want to watch…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006STRANGE DAYSSherlockmania – second only in hysteria and volume to Beatlemania – is gripping the streets of north London. Crime Scene is corralled behind a crowd barrier in the vicinity of Euston Station. Night has fallen and we’re standing alongside thousands of fans, who have journeyed from as far afield as China and Japan. Since before dawn they’ve been lining up along North Gower Street which, as all card-carrying Sherlockians doubtless already know, doubles for Baker Street in BBC One’s global hit drama. We’re getting completely drenched by three massive rain machines, which are pouring down outside number 221B, in preparation for a brief scene outside the house. However, no one’s ardour appears dampened. There’s certainly no lack of enthusiasm when Benedict Cumberbatch, clad in Sherlock’s trademark Belstaff ‘Milford’ coat, magically…12 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE ACCUSEDWhen Crime Scene arrives at a former fire station opposite Manchester Piccadilly station on an autumn morning, the city seems oblivious to the fact that one of the biggest Christmas TV dramas is being filmed inside the cavernous Edwardian building, which has stood empty for 30 years. Between takes, while the film crew come and go with equipment, Andrea Riseborough stands on the busy street, wearing 1920s dress, smoking and talking on her iPhone. Yet the general public have failed to register the star of the Tom Cruise sci-fi blockbuster Oblivion, not to mention National Treasure and Birdman. Stepping through a door and descending the stairs to the hazy set of Agatha Christie’s The Witness For The Prosecution is to leave modern Manchester behind and arrive in London, circa 1923.…9 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006NEW TRICKSHe’s the former magician’s consultant with a talent for solving impossible crimes, a duffle coat as iconic as Sarah Lund’s sweater in The Killing, and a mildly grumpy demeanour that conceals a sharp, logical mind. Jonathan Creek may be a comedy creation, but he’s also one of TV’s greatest detectives. A one-off Christmas special, “Daemons’ Roost”, will mark two decades of Jonathan Creek for its star, Alan Davies, and the series’ creator, David Renwick, who’s sweated over every one of its 32 episodes. “I suppose it’s a bit like Sherlock Holmes’ ‘three-pipe problem’, getting as few distractions as possible – that’s the only way I can concentrate,” Renwick explains to Crime Scene. “I then find that I tend to slip further and further out of the chair and that’s when…9 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006SNOW PATROLStockholm during mid-summer is a delight to behold. Crystal-clear waters shimmer beneath the colourful boats bobbing in the city’s harbour, its elegant, gabled buildings are dappled with sunlight, and students sit sipping cold beers in idyllic, seemingly hidden squares. This picture-perfect summer scene hardly looks like the setting for the latest icicle of seriously chilling, appropriately snowy Nordic Noir. However, that’s what it’s become through the magic of filmmaking… Crime Scene is crouched beside the monitor inside a nondescript office block in suburban Stockholm. The windows have been blacked out, blocking out the gorgeous morning sun, and the crew’s constructed a suitably Stygian interior for the main character’s apartment in midwinter. It’s a truly dark setting for a truly dark drama. Welcome to Modus. Despite the fact that Czech-Austrian-British actor…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Death becomes herWhen Crime Scene arrives at a BBC studio in West Acton on a bright October morning, we’re greeted by a horrific sight: a corpse on a gurney with the tell-tale stitching of a Y-shaped incision from a post-mortem examination. Though cold to the touch, thankfully, it isn’t a real cadaver, but one of the eerily lifelike prosthetic corpses which feature alongside the guest actors who are playing dead. “They’ve opened the series with some of the best prosthetic bodies we’ve had,” says Emilia Fox, who plays Dr. Nikki Alexander. “I had a meeting in here after work one day, people were coming in who were nothing to do with the show – they had no idea this is what I did – and they thought that they were walking through…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CALLAN: THE CHARACTERSDavid Callan : Former operative in Security, now a clerk. A basically kindly man but with a high degree of skill and security. Good pistol shot and a cunning thief. The clash of the two interests has left him bewildered as a human being. Lower middle-class background. Age 35. Hunter: Head of Security section. Regular army in manner. Hunter’s ruthless and well-mannered. Makes plans like a first-rate staff officer, which in fact he is. Age 50. Schneider: Ex-regular German Army officer, now a gun runner to the Indonesians in Malaysia. Big, bluff, charming, immensely competent. Fond of the good things in life. Age 50. Meres: Public school, Etonian manner. Fascist in outlook. An executioner who loves his job. Mid-twenties. Lonely: Small, nervous crook who suffers badly from B.O. and specialises…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006TIMELINE29 OCT 1954 Jim Grant born in Coventry. Grows up in Birmingham and studies law at Sheffield University. His brother Andrew also becomes a writer. 1 SEP 1995 Begins writing a novel under the pen name Lee Child after redundancy from Granada TV. He starts all his books on the same date. 5 JUN 1997 UK publication of Killing Floor. Reacher’s name comes from Child’s wife saying he’s a good “reacher” in a supermarket. 22 JUL 2011 Child’s 61 Hours wins the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Award, beating Mark Billingham and S.J. Bolton. 26 DEC 2012 The UK release of Jack Reacher, the movie version of One Shot (book nine), starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike and Werner Herzog. 10 SEP 2014 Child throws the ceremonial first…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006BECK VOLUME 2Pathologist Gunilla Urst (Anu Sinisalo) tells Martin Beck (Peter Haber), “A person doesn’t have to be evil just because they do evil things”. That reflects the subtle philosophical maturity that exemplifies the approach of this Swedish detective drama. Packaged for the UK as the second volume of the Beck series, these latest four television films (episodes 31 to 34 in a run stretching back to 1997) provide ample support for the show’s continued success, even if “The Last Day” — in some respects the most predictable of the four — toys with the idea of the titular Martin Beck retiring. The main story arc across these four episodes of Beck is the effective writing-out of the show’s long-term principal sidekick, Gunvald Larsson (Mikael Persbrandt), and the establishment of his successor,…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE OUT-LAWSOne can only imagine the amount of spirit-sapping slop that Walter Iuzzolino, curator of the foreign-language TV drama platform Walter Presents, has to drudge through as part of his job. But then chancing across the odd pearl, like The Out-Laws, must make it all seem quite worthwhile. A major hit that guzzled awards in its native Belgium, this bruise-black comedy-cum-murder-mystery boasts one of the most memorable TV monsters ever, in the supremely hateable Jean-Claude Delcorps (Dirk Roofthooft). Described as a “despicable turtle’s fart” (presumably a devastating insult in Belgium), he’s a character so odious that his four sisters-in-law, who are otherwise among the finest, most upstanding people you could ever imagine, want to rub him out. There’s a very appealing sense of naturalism and a lightness of touch to Malin-Sarah…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006RATHER BE THE DEVIL“IT’S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO THINK OF REBUS WITHOUT A PACKET OF fa*gS OR A PINT” Owing to medical advice, former detective John Rebus begins his 21st outing quitting cigarettes and beer. Readers may find it almost impossible to think of him without a packet of fa*gs or a pint of IPA in the Oxford Bar. Yet it’s police investigations which turn out to be the one habit that the officially retired Rebus can’t break. “Someone was murdered here, you know,” he tells his pathologist girlfriend, while they’re dining at Edinburgh’s Caledonian Hotel. Back in 1978, the adulterous wife of a banker was strangled in Room 316. It was a news story that had everything: the victim’s ‘racy’ lifestyle, her wealthy family and rock star Bruce Collier, who happened to be…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE WRONG SIDE OF GOODBYE“DESIGNED TO MANOEUVRE BOSCH INTO A SPACE WHERE HIS STORY CAN CONTINUE” Canny, driven and deeply moral, Hieronymus ‘Harry’ Bosch is one of modern crime fiction’s most compelling heroes. Bosch is a man who, during his heyday, hunted serial killers and faced down his venal, foolish senior colleagues with equal aplomb. However, that was a decade ago when Harry was experienced enough to out-think the bad guys yet young enough to chase after them. Today, Bosch, who’s lately been forced to leave the Los Angeles Police Department and is in his 60s, is starting to creak a little. For his creator, it’s posed a problem which is similar to that faced by Ian Rankin with his hero, Rebus: how do you continue to write about a central character who’s old…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE BEAUTIFUL DEAD“BAUER’S SHORT, SHARP SCENES COMPEL YOU TO KEEP READING…” Belinda Bauer is probably Britain’s most original crime writer. Her debut of 2009, Blacklands, saw a 12-year-old corresponding with a jailed child killer, while 2013’s Rubbernecker had an anatomy student stumbling across a murder amid the dissection room cadavers. Therefore, the expectations were high for The Beautiful Dead but it may initially disappoint: depicting a murderer who strikes in familiar London locations feels like a deliberately commercial move. As a result, Bauer’s seventh novel lacks the atmosphere of her books set in the wilds of Devon. Yet the quality of her writing, the humour she mines from humdrum lives and the detached character insights (“No-one fed his cat” is the stark summary of one victim) means that you can forgive Bauer…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006POST MORTEM GALLOWS DROP“DCI KATE DANIELS REALLY IS AN OUTSTANDING CONTEMPORARY CRIME FICTION CHARACTER” The rise in popularity of regional crime fiction has been a welcome development over recent years, but it strikes Crime Scene that very soon there won’t be a site of historical interest in the whole of Britain that hasn’t played host to a (fictional) corpse. Thanks to Mari Hannah’s latest novel, any tour of literary crime scenes will now have to take in Winter’s Gibbet, a real-life gallows that stands as a reminder of a notorious 18th-century murder in the Northumberland village of Elsdon. The sixth novel in Hannah’s series featuring DCI Kate Daniels begins with the discovery of the body of a young man, well known as a champion amateur wrestler, who’s found hanging from the gibbet. This…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE BOOK OF MIRRORSWhen it comes to whodunits, the investigation cuts both ways: as the protagonist delves into the mystery, readers interpret their fractured identity. In this seamless mix of literary experiment and page-turning mystery, Romanian-Hungarian author Chirovici explores that idea with great élan, unpicking the ‘truth’ about a 25-year-old murder from three viewpoints. Sold to multiple territories last year, this book arrived in the UK with a buzz. Chirovici’s English-language debut sees him making taut, tense work of living up to that hype and his own ambitions. This skilful mosaic of problematic memories and missing manuscripts begins with a student-written novel, concerning the killing of a Princeton professor, being sent to a literary agent. That novel within bristles with noir-ish riffs on obsession and jealousy, deftly layered with clues, twists, deferrals and…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006LITTLE DEATHSWhile poor writing trips over its own feet and good writing moves nimbly, great writing travels. Newcastle-born Emma Flint has successfully conjured the humid drear of 1960s New York in her heartsick debut novel. The tale of Ruth Malone, a single mother whose two young children go missing, Little Deaths dances back and forth in time, with every moment since Ruth’s first awful realisation of her loss disappearing into an endless, after-shocked now. This is less a whodunit than a howl of outrage at how women are put on trial for what they are, rather than their actions, and Little Deaths is particularly good at getting under Ruth’s itching skin. A brittle, bird-like lady with more admirers than common decency decrees, Ruth wraps herself in self-disgust to “keep the wrong…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006DEATH IN THE TUSCAN HILLSWith this, his fifth outing, Inspector Bordelli is shaping up to be a detective whose investigations are, like the Montalbano novels by Andrea Camilleri, required reading for fans of Italian crime fiction. However, Death In The Tuscan Hills finds Bordelli no longer a serving police officer. In the wake of a troubling case that involved the savage murder of a child, a break-up with the girl of his dreams and the catastrophic 1966 flooding of Florence, the ageing detective has chosen to retire and move to the countryside, to tend his vegetable patch. That is hardly a promising set-up for a crime novel but don’t underestimate Vichi’s ability to manoeuvre this former anti-fascist Partisan into intriguing and dangerous scenarios. When Bordelli agrees to re-examine the supposed suicide of a young…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CHAOSSince making her prize-winning debut with Post Mortem in 1991, Cornwell’s 23 novels starring Kay Scarpetta, the brilliant forensic pathologist, have put the writer firmly at the top of the crime fiction tree, with her heroine laying open human malfeasance as unflinchingly as she examines the innards of murder victims. Needless to say, with such a prolific output, Cornwell has made the occasional misstep, and there may be those readers who feel that Chaos finds the author not quite at her most involving. Nevertheless, the ticking clock scenario here maintains a grip. Scarpetta and her partner, Pete Marino, become involved in the case of a dead cyclist – a young woman who has been brutalised with unprecedented savagery. Puzzling calls suggest that Interpol is involved, but Scarpetta suspects a cyber…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Famous Last Words“ The hero of the tale is stoned out of his mind for most of the time ” “This doesn’t mean we’re back together” INHERENT VICE (2014) One of the best cult crime movies in recent years is also among the most baffling. Based on a psychedelic detective novel by US author Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice even had its own director suggesting that critics may well dub the film “Incoherent Vice”. But that’s probably to be expected when the hero of the tale is stoned out of his mind for most of the time. Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) is not your typical detective. It’s 1970 and the mutton-chopped private eye is working the mean streets of Gordita Beach, Los Angeles, where he is despised as “hippy scum” by the…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006EVERY EPISODE EVEROPENING CREDITS MAX’S VOICEOVER: This is Jonathan Hart, a self-made millionaire. He’s quite a guy, but his acting consists primarily of wandering around looking concerned. And this is Mrs. H. – bloody phwoooar, eh? By the way, my name is Max, a kind of butler-cum-mafia hood they take on all their expensive holidays, because when they met, it was moidoir… BOATYARD, EXOTIC CARIBBEAN LOCATION, NIGHT Handsome Businessman meets a Handsome Younger Businessman With A Secret. HANDSOME BUSINESSMAN: Is our plot involving shady dealings in the yachting industry nearing completion? HANDSOME YOUNGER BUSINESSMAN: It certainly is. Here is either a pivotal item that’s key to its success or a very valuable jewel, which I shall hide inside this hollowed-out, ordinary artefact. HANDSOME BUSINESSMAN: That should make sure absolutely nothing goes wrong,…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 000610 OF THE BEST1. DISSOLUTION BY C.J. SANSOM The Shardlake series is set during the reign of Henry VIII. When Thomas Cromwell’s Commissioner is found dead, lawyer Matthew Shardlake is sent to investigate. Fascinating historical detail, a gripping plot and believable characters make for a thrilling read. 2. THE AXEMAN’S JAZZ BY RAY CELESTIN A gripping thriller set against the backdrop of jazz-filled, mob-ruled New Orleans in 1919. A serial killer is stalking the city and an unlikely trio set out to catch him: cop Michael Talbot, ex-detective Luca d’Andrea and Ida, a secretary at the Pinkerton Agency. 3. THE STRANGLER VINE BY M.J. CARTER If you’re a fan of Ripper Street, then this pulse-racing novel is for you. You’ll be totally captivated as you accompany Carter’s detective duo on their investigation –…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006PLAY DEAD“I love sitting at the back, watching the audience’s reaction” Detective Superintendent Roy Grace is one of the world’s most popular literary detectives – his 12th outing, Love You Dead, is another bestseller for author Peter James. Yet the Brighton-based cop has never made it to the small screen, despite several attempts. “All the original cast I had in mind are now sort of retired,” admits James. Although a TV series is not imminent, the stage adaptations keep on coming. Grace made his theatre debut in 2014, in an adaptation of the standalone novella, The Perfect Murder. This year saw the first book in the Grace series, Dead Simple, become a play and Grace is set to return in Not Dead Enough, a 2017 touring production by Shaun McKenna, based…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Jamie Dornan“ He’s so adept at taking life and also helping people through the grief of losing someone ” What can you tell us about serial killer Paul Spector in the third series of The Fall ? He’s such a complex character, from top to tail, and those complexities get revealed more and more over the three series. In Series 3, particularly, we get an insight into the mind of Spector. Questions are answered about why he is the way he is and the events of his life that have led him to the position that he’s in now. It’s such a treat to get to play someone who’s so layered – even after four years of playing him, I am still finding out more about the character.…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006HAVING FRIENDS FOR DINNER?MURDER-FREE RECIPES The cannibalistic Dr. Lecter’s ambitious feasts on Hannibal were all the work of food stylist Janice Poon. Now her cookbook gives the show’s “Fannibals” the chance to make the visually striking recipes that Lecter served to his guests – thankfully, without the serial killer’s favourite ingredient. MEAT HEAD Hannibal possesses impressive butchery and cookery skills, which star Mads Mikkelsen had to learn from master chef Janice Poon. In the book’s foreword, he reveals that those culinary techniques included, “presenting a human leg as if it was a pork loin decorated with tomatoes cut into tiny roses”. PERFECT HOST Hannibal gets to indulge in two of his favourite things during the Series 1 episode “Sorbet” – opera and cookery. With several guests to cater for, he needs to source…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006Life OF Crime HEROES OF CRIME WRITING REVEAL THEIR INFLUENCES AND INSPIRATIONSWhat is the very first crime story you can ever remember reading? It was probably Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “The Cask of Amontillado”, because that’s how people were introduced to the idea of the detective. He’s really good, and to think that he didn’t have predecessors makes him even more worthy of credit. What is your all-time favourite crime novel and why? Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement In Stone is genius from the first to the last sentence. It’s super creepy. I’ve taught it a number of times and people have a love-hate relationship [with it]. They love it because it’s so beautifully plotted and written, but they hate it because of their helplessness. This is the genius of the book – I’ve read it four or five…3 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006SECOND HOLMES“It’s an episode we all had circled on our calendar,” Elementary creator and executive producer Rob Doherty tells Crime Scene, as he looks forward to the 100th episode. “It’s surreal when you think about how hard it is just to get a pilot through the development process and on the air. To think that we managed to do 99 after that one is mind-boggling.” Purists could have been forgiven for being sceptical about the CBS series when it debuted in 2012. Season One of Sherlock had already proved that Holmes could be modernised. At first glance, Elementary might have looked like an attempt to ride the BBC’s coattails, and relocating the detective to New York City did not seem promising, given the poor track record that American networks have in…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006MYSTERY MANHow did you enjoy working on this Christie adaptation? Agatha Christie’s stuff is often very plot-driven. This feels slightly different. Sarah [Phelps] has taken onboard the fact that the First World War had finished five years before, what that had done to a recovering England and how that might play out, in a response to what you might call just another death after millions. Why do you think Agatha Christie’s work endures? It’s kind of ingenious and sometimes even absurd the game that is being played with you. But having said that, you know, this one is not like that. That’s what I was expecting to read but it is very unfamiliar territory. Is your solicitor character, John Mayhew, essentially the investigator in The Witness For The Prosecution…4 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006GEEKING ON CREEK1 Nicholas Lyndhurst and Hugh Laurie turned down the lead role, while Rik Mayall was unavailable. Nigel Planer and Angus Deayton were also considered. 2 Comedian Alan Davies was cast, despite his minimal acting experience. His first day saw Davies mistaken for a lazy set runner. 3 Creator David Renwick cast Annette Crosbie (above) from his sitcom One Foot In The Grave in the Series 1 episode, “The House Of Monkeys”. 4 Jonathan Creek, a real place in Kentucky, USA, may have inspired the series’ title. 5 Stage magic was originally a bigger element of the show but that angle was cut back, for budgetary reasons and its lack of relevance to the story arc. 6 Anthony Head (left) played magician Adam Klaus in the pilot. However, Head left the…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006PARADISE CITY CARIBBEANOf all the TV crime dramas, the one series that every journalist desperately wants an invite to the set of is Death In Paradise. Filmed on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, the BBC One ratings winner stars Kris Marshall as British Detective Inspector Humphrey Goodman, who investigates baffling cases from Honoré, the main town in the fictional British colony of Saint-Marie. Would Crime Scene like to visit the set of Series 6? Just as soon as we’ve dug out that wrinkled linen suit and snorkel… As it turns out, the set is in not-so-idyllic South London. For the first time, over two episodes, the Honoré Police team are visiting the British capital on a murder case. Following a minibus journey through Rotherhithe’s narrow streets, our destination is almost as inviting…7 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CALLAN“It was a very exciting time in television,” Edward woodward recalled in 1987, of his casting as David Callan in the TV play “A Magnum For Schneider”, which aired on the ITV network in February 1967. “It really was the first of the anti-heroes, non-heroes, whatever you want to call it, and it really kind of led the way, as Armchair Theatre did many times. The thing that appealed to me about the character was that he had a chip on his shoulder, he was a hero with feet of clay and he was a prickly kind of person. I was very much looking for that kind of character to play: this man went right down the middle, you couldn’t make up your mind what he was… It was quite…6 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE INTERROGATION LEE CHILD“You could say one of the big models for Reacher would be Sherlock Holmes,” he tells Crime Scene. “He’s very thoughtful, he’s very evidence-based, he is logical in that same way that Sherlock Holmes is logical.” As well as being by far the most successful author in the room, with book sales topping 100 million, Lee Child also tends to be the tallest. At 6ft 4in, he’s just a shade shorter than his literary hero, former US military policeman Jack Reacher, which makes him easy for fans to spot. So when Child ambles into a book launch just off London’s Leicester Square, Crime Scene seizes the moment. This leather jacket-clad, superstar thriller writer is supremely laidback – surprisingly so for an author who’s expected to deliver another bestseller…12 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE FALL S3This series has always excelled at tension and stealth – those moments where Gillian Anderson’s measured delivery sets the pace or when Jamie Dornan’s stare speaks volumes. So if the third (final?) series of Allan Cubitt’s cop versus killer drama seems to jump the shark so often that it needs water skis, it also succeeds as a sustained mystery and a character piece, one which leaves room for self-interrogation while making palms sweat. Series 2’s climax saw killer Paul Spector (Dornan) shot and being cradled by Anderson’s DSI Stella Gibson while she ignored a wounded colleague (and lover) nearby. Some Fonz-grade shark-jumping follows, as Spector survives, with amnesia blotting his crimes from memory. This can seem like forced plotting or worse, as old murders are revisited for the amnesiac Spector’s…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE NIGHT OFHBO’s The Night Of was one of the most talked about shows of 2016. Improbably, the series is a US remake of a 2008 BBC drama, Criminal Justice, written by Peter Moffat. The action has been moved to New York City, but it’s heartening to see British breakout star Riz Ahmed (Rogue One, Jason Bourne) in the lead role of Nasir ‘Naz’ Khan, an easygoing student who is suspected of murder. Naz’s fate seems to have been sealed the moment he secretly borrows his father’s taxi for a night on the town. When a young woman, Andrea Cornish (Sofia Black-D’Elia), gets into the cab, he accepts the fare. One thing leads to another and they end up at her Upper West Side brownstone, high on drugs and booze, playing with…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006ONE OF USBrothers Harry and Jack Williams have form. Among a good deal else, they’re the writers of The Missing, the first series of which featured an increasingly out-of-control James Nesbitt scouring Northern France, in search of his abducted son. What began as a rational response to grief gradually took on the aspect of a dangerous obsession. Family ties and the passions they can harbour also lie at the heart of the Williams’ latest TV thriller, the four-part, Scottish-set One Of Us, which aired on BBC One. The show starts idyllically: Adam and Grace are childhood sweethearts, growing up as neighbours in the countryside north of Edinburgh. As in a fairytale they marry – we even see clips from their wedding video – and then Grace falls pregnant. But barely a few…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006MODUS S1Perhaps the element most often lacking in Nordic Noir is the one that you might reasonably expect: snow. But that isn’t a complaint which can be levelled at Modus, a chilling series that’s set in an irrefutably icy Sweden over the Christmas period. Based on Anne Holt’s novel, this snowbound series boasts a smart and very believable main protagonist, Inger Johanne Vik (Melinda Kinnaman), a psychologist and profiler who’s drawn into an investigation – alongside grieving detective Ingvar Nyman (Henrik Norlén) – that soon feels uncomfortably close to home. During a family wedding at a Stockholm hotel, Vik’s autistic daughter, Stina (Esmeralda Struwe), witnesses the aftermath of the murder of a celebrity chef. Petrified, the child wanders off into the street with the cold-eyed killer in pursuit. But what happens…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE WHISTLERJust one of the curiosities of John Grisham’s career is that many of his books don’t actually deliver too many unexpected thrills. Rather, his novels are typically, if not exclusively, legal procedurals where the plot is often telegraphed ahead. The Whistler is a case in point. It’s about lawyers who bring misbehaving judges to book in Florida and, when attorney-investigator Lacy Stoltz is tipped off about a corrupt judge with connections to organised crime, you can largely see where the story is going. With other writers, this would be a problem, yet Grisham’s prose style is so assured that it really doesn’t matter. Instead, as he guides us through the intricacies of why Native Americans are permitted to operate casinos where others would struggle to get a gaming licence, and…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006CAST IRONBack in 2006, May’s novel Extraordinary People introduced Enzo Macleod, a lion-maned, Italian-Scottish hippy and serial ladykiller who’s also a brilliant forensic scientist and lecturer at a French university. That novel saw Macleod make a drunken bet with a journalist who had published a book about unsolved Gallic murders, vowing to get to the bottom of all of these baffling cases. After five novels, May put the Enzo Macleod novels on the back burner, as he emerged from the publishing mid-list with his hugely successful Lewis Trilogy, which is set in the Outer Hebrides. May now takes us back to France for the sixth and final outing for Macleod, wherein we finally get to discover whether he’ll win that bet — although Enzo’s more worried about tracking down whoever’s trying…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006THE HANGING TREEThose who can’t abide fiction where the fantastic intrudes on everyday life should look away now. The sixth book in the Rivers Of London series stars Peter Grant, a Met constable and apprentice wizard studying under the eerily long-lived DCI Thomas Nightingale. Similarly to the way that Special Branch investigate terrorism, Grant and Nightingale deal with eldritch events. And, in a London where deep myth constantly intrudes on the present, and Grant himself is going steady with a ‘river spirit’, Beverley Brook, there are plenty of such happenings to disturb the peace. This time around, the events revolve around a death at an obscenely expensive apartment complex. The daughter of another river spirit, Lady Ty(burn), was at the scene of the crime and, as Grant owes her mother a favour,…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006BETRAYALReeva O’Hara is quite a character – the matriarch of Martina Cole’s 23rd novel is a drunken, unmarried mother who’s about to have to her fifth child, which is scandalous behaviour for 1981. When O’Hara smokes dope during the birth, she could be straight out of a cartoon in Viz. Cole sketches O’Hara’s character with clarity and compassion – her aggressive persona is actually a bit of a front. As O’Hara’s children despair of her antics, eldest son Aiden makes his way in London’s organised crime scene. The first 150 pages fly by as he rises through the ranks, forms a gangland power couple with a former prostitute and recruits his younger brothers. The problem is Aiden, a womanising psychopath, is never as interesting as his mother. In fact, several…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006GOOD ME, BAD MEAll teenage girls have their secrets, but 15-year-old Milly’s is diabolical. Her mother is a serial killer who’s dubbed the ‘Peter Pan Killer’ by an excited media – the victims were nine small children. Milly turned her mother in to the police herself and, her true identity concealed, has been fostered by an affluent West London family. However, Milly’s new home isn’t quite the safe haven she’d hoped for. The motivation of the father, Mike, a psychotherapist, isn’t as clear-cut as pure altruism, while matriarch Saskia is a booze-addled mess, and their daughter, Phoebe, is a vicious bully, one whose calculated cruelties towards the incomer are brilliantly drawn. As her mother’s trial approaches, Milly attempts to assimilate into her new family and school are hampered by the scarring reality of…1 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006DON’T TURN OUT THE LIGHTS“THIS IS A NOVEL THAT EXERTS A CHILLY GRIP RIGHT FROM THE START” As the old saying goes, ‘just because you’re paranoid, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you’. Christine Steinmeyer is evidently paranoid in the extreme – at least according to her fiancé, her colleagues, the neighbours and the police – but it turns out that she’s got good reason to be. An attractive young woman who is a popular and successful breakfast show presenter at a Toulouse radio station, Steinmeyer heads out to meet her fiancé’s parents on Christmas Eve but discovers an anonymous letter in her mailbox. It’s from a woman who announces that she’s about to commit suicide and accuses Steinmeyer of being the reason why. From there on in, her successful life…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006SIRENS“A MANCHESTER-SET NOIR THAT’S HARD-HITTING AND IMMENSELY READABLE” While many contemporary crime authors aspire to write noir, few manage to capture its bleak essence and dark poetry. With his debut novel, Joseph Knox has achieved something remarkable – a totally modern, Manchester-set noir that’s atmospheric, hard-hitting and immensely readable. Sirens signals the arrival of a major new talent. The novel’s opening page finds disgraced detective Aidan Waits having received a blow to the head and his life about to unravel. It may be a familiar scenario – the compromised cop taking a walk on the wild side – but Sirens is unusual for a British novel, as it possesses literary heft comparable to the US fiction that shines a light on the drug trade. In Knox’s case, it’s an illegal…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006HER EVERY FEAR“SWANSON EXPLORES HOW FEAR CAN COLOUR A PERSON’S PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD” Kate Priddy is suspicious of everyone. She’s always been the anxious type, and after her abusive former boyfriend left her locked in a cupboard for days, she’s developed a whole new set of phobias. Priddy’s default response to any unfamiliar situation is terror, and who could blame her? But when she finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation, it looks like her tendency to imagine the worst may finally prove useful. Swanson’s latest thriller (his previous bestsellers are The Girl With A Clock For A Heart and The Kind Worth Killing), finds him painting a queasily accurate portrayal of what it’s like to live with anxiety every day. However, Priddy isn’t positioned as a helpless victim,…2 分
Crime Scene|Crime Scene UK 0006HIDDEN KILLERSOn London Fields, a prostitute in a cheap blue rabbit-fur coat is struggling with an assailant who holds a knife to her throat. But this woman isn’t who she seems – in fact, she’s a young Jane Tennison on an undercover assignment. Soon afterwards, a woman is discovered dead in a bath, with her child left crying in the next room. Was it accidental death or murder? That question soon engages Tennison, who already has her hands full with a multiple rape case. The pattern of her future career is soon clear: taking on the CID and putting herself in danger. This follow-up to La Plante’s successful, 1973-set Tennison, which depicted her longtime heroine not as the tough, mature copper we know from the Helen Mirrenstarring TV incarnation but as…1 分
