Crime Fiction, from Z Cars and Miss Marple to Barbara Vine and Breaking Bad

 It’s taken years to get me into crime fiction, I think because I couldn't relate to so much of it. There were Agatha Christie's unbelievable and dated set pieces with dislikeable characters murdering each other in country mansions. I’ve had more pleasure playing Cluedo. Also Raymond Chandler's private dicks being sexist dicks, set in an America I couldn’t identify with either.

                          Z cars - a Ford Zephyr if you want to know

Then on telly were the violent TV cop shows like Kojak and The Professionals. I never got on with Inspector Morse (too Oxfordy) or other dull shows like Bergerac and the preposterous premise of Midsomer Murders. They all just put me off. The only crime show I remember favourably was from much earlier, in my childhood, that was Z-Cars, which seemed to my young mind to portray real people.

So for years I didn’t really read or watch crime drama apart from silly but entertaining heist movies like the original Italian Job, or parodies like the Pink Panther. All the macho men being macho cops and macho crooks had very little appeal. I didn’t get it.

Then along came TV's Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes with their different, parodic take on the classic UK cop dramas. Things were looking up. Then Peaky Blinders blew everything else out of the water. 

As for books, In the last decade or two, a couple of friends began writing and publishing, ‘cosy’ crime fiction with elderly Miss Marple types which I felt obliged to read, and were better than I expected. Having read more books in this bracket, I find them relaxing and I can get through one in an evening. They’re easy to read and easy to forget. I do prefer grittier writing styles though, 

                                    the vile Walter White
Now I’m much more into TV crime shows, which began during lockdown, when I dove in the deep end with Braking Bad. I saw most of it but didn’t watch the whole of the final series, I just hated Walter White with such a vengeance I decided I wanted that odious, arrogant, deluded man out of my head! I enjoy a variety of crime TV, from Killing Eve and Endeavor to Vera and the Shetland series. It's good characterisation and acting which makes them all work, real people again. 

As for reading, I have become a huge Ian Rankin fan and have every single Rebus novel on my bookshelf, including several signed hardbacks. Also enjoy Kate Mosse, Shelley Burbank, PD James and Barbara Vine. It’s currently Ann Cleeves. 

Will I start writing crime fiction soon? I think I already have.

The Shetland Series by Ann Cleeves

 I have now read all eight of Ann Cleeves original series of books, and I've seen all TV episodes u to the end of series seven. I know I have two more series to look foward to, with a change of lead as DI Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshal) is replaced by DI Ruth Calder (Ashley Jensen). 

I have enjoyed all of them, print and screen, which has surprised me a bit. I often prefer books to filmed interpretations, but these differ a lot, particularly in characterisation and I have really enjoyed both. Ann Cleeves is a superb writer, grounded in her locations and deeply involved with her characters. 

The TV interpretation of the Shetland stories is excellent, the cinematography and locations are beautiful, enigmatic and give the entire series a noir atmosphere which really suits the stories, although liberties are taken, and only series one and two are based on the stories in the books. The character of Fran, in particular is very different, she doesn't appear at all on TV, she's just Cassie's deceased mum and Jimmy Perez' dead wife. 

The characters of two other police officers, Sandy Wilson and Alison McIntosh (Tosh) are treated radically differently in the books. Sandy (played on TV by native Shetlander Steven Robertson) plays a major role in print, the action is often from his POV and his character's development over the series is almost as good as that of Jimmy Perez (Douglas Henshall), whilst Sandy's TV role is subordinate. On the other hand Tosh (Alison O'Donnell) is Perez right-hand woman on TV yet hardly gets a mention in the books at all.

The first, two part TV series is based on The Red Bones, which is probably the best of the books, so I'm not surprised they chose this story to begin with. It worked and was popular so series two involved three more books, Raven Black, Dead Water and Blue Lightening. Each story was given two episodes. After that the TV stories diverged from the remaining novels. 

As a fellow writer I will name the TV writers, no more actors:- episodes were written exclusively for the screen by Gaby Chiappe, David Kane, Richard Davidson, Robert Murphy, Alexander Perrin, Paul Logue and Louise Ironside, Later series 8 - 10, which I haven't yet viewed, are by Paul Logue and Denise Paul.

Meanwhile Ann Cleeves, the author, has just published another Jimmy Perez novel, which I'm excited about and look froward to reading. It's her first Perez story since 2018 and is no longer set on Shetland. Ann has said about the book, that she felt there needed to be more to DI Jimmy Perez story. I agree.