So, #TeamTennison…if you haven’t seen this splashed across other blogs or the internet, I shall explain…however, first of all I must apologise that my review is late – I had my final essay for my first OU module due, as I desperately attempt to graduate before I’m, er, 55! I’m back on track now; I can relax and am reading the next book in the series now, and will get it reviewed on time.
To explain, this is a collection of bloggers who will, until next summer, read and review the first nine Jane Tennison books roughly every 4-6 weeks. I’m really excited about this project – I’ve read perhaps half a dozen of Lynda’s books, but none were Jane Tennison ones, curiously. The tenth book will be released next summer. Now, get that picture of the Helen Mirren DCI Tennison out of your heads – as avid fans who read all the La Plante books will already know, these books start with Jane as a 22-year-old probationary WPC straight out of Hendon, and somewhat naive due to a fairly sheltered upbringing. But she’s bright, observant, keen to learn, and when she sees what a detective’s everyday workload is like compared to a WPC’s, which seems to involve standing at the counter to see what complaints members of the public have, or answering the phone, or routine paperwork…well, she’s determined to join the CID – not easy for a “new girl” in the ’70s, when they were mainly expected to look after “toms”, help deal with domestics, and take care of babies and children. (My mother was a WPC in Inverness a year or two earlier than this – a place doubtless slightly quieter than the Met’s territory!)
So how does Jane’s career go?
She gets involved in several different cases – it’s a fairly chunky book for a police procedural, at nearly 600 pages, but it’s introducing us to one of the most iconic female police officers in TV and books. And I can assure you, the tension and excitement do not let up for the whole of the book, and it flies in.
Early in the book Jane gets a lucky break when she helps an older woman who’s dropped her shopping home – she’s inadvertently entered the home of a family of notorious villains, who have a big job coming up. The observations Jane makes help launch one of the station’s biggest ever robbery investigations later in the book.
She has just one female ally, the tough and witty Kath…
Kath has her eye on a CID career too, and in the station they become fast friends, with Kath, who’s been there longer, and is a bit more streetwise and certainly has no flies on her, keeping Jane right about their male counterparts: who’s got wandering hands, who’ll play childish practical jokes on the women, who’ll attempt to offload all the typing and filing onto the “girls,” etc…it’s a detailed picture of life for a WPC in the mid-’70s, and as ever with one of Linda’s books, the research is spot on, in terms of the equipment they have, the cars on the street, the off-duty clothing, the music – it’s definitely got TV potential, which is of course unsurprising, given that’s where Lynda’s career started (she was an actress, before becoming a writer for TV), and how successful her previous book-to-tv adaptations have been (my favourite was the Case Sensitive series, with cop Anna Travis played by Kelly Reilly – now starring in the stratospheric Yellowstone – and Ciaran Hinds as her boss.)
And a hot boss!
DCI Bradfield spots Jane’s potential – and her good looks – fairly quickly, and when Jane moves into the same police accommodation block as he’s in, there’s potential for some discreet hanky-panky…I mean, we have to have a little bit of romance! But Jane’s fallen hard for Bradfield, and Kath warns him that, to Jane, this is more than just a bit of fun – she’s young, fairly inexperienced with men, and Kath’s spotted Jane’s inability to take her eyes off her charismatic superior.
There’s a murder, which Jane has a part in the investigation of.
A 17-year-old girl is found killed, and she’s known to the police as she works as a “tom” to support a drug habit. She comes from a very respectable middle class home, but she only reappears there when she’s looking for money. Some of that money proves to be crucial when the police attempt to track down her murderer.
So there’s loads of cases, some great characters, a realistic taste of the ’70s…
And it all ends with some MAJOR drama, which is nail-bitingly exciting, and clearly inspired by a particularly notorious early ’70s bank job! The detail is superb, but doesn’t hold back the thrills….I was turning the pages as rapidly as I could, and the ending was devastatingly shocking – yes, definitely, made for TV! I can see every talented up-and-coming British actress chasing the part of the young Jane Tennison – and it will definitely make for television that is NOT to be missed, just as this book (and the next one…in fact, I’m betting the entire series!) is not to be missed either!
An action-packed introduction to one of the most iconic characters in British crime fiction – you will NOT be disappointed!
With thanks to Tracy Fenton at Compulsive Readers for inviting me on this epic blog tour, and Simon & Schuster and Lynda La Plante.
crimeworm 