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.