Being an incorrigible book snaffler at Macmillan I’ve managed to aquire lots of reading matter and it’s not all SFF, as you may have noticed by many of my past reviews. I do seem to be developing a bit of a detective fiction habit. If I can grab a copy of a new book by Minette Walters I will, also Peter James and Peter Robinson. The Inspector Banks book by the last of these I’ve been reading and enjoying, but only in the same way as with Peter James, that is, I need a bit of a break between books to go away and read something else – detective books, set in the same location with the same characters do get a bit samey, a bit formulaic. That aside, they’re still good and I still enjoy them.
So, I had mixed feelings when I found out that there was to be an ITV production of Peter Robinson’s Aftermath with Stephen Tomkinson as DCI Banks. On the one hand I was really glad to see that it was being done with such a heavyweight actor in the lead role, on the other hand I was pissed off because, being in Crete, I probably wouldn’t get to see it until it was out on DVD.
When we got back here I was happy to discover that Caroline’s father had overcome his previous problems in dealing with a DVD recorder and managed to record the two episodes for us. Last night we sat down and watched them and, what can I say, it was great. It had Morse-like camera work, Tomkinson was excellent in the role of the permanently haunted Banks and all the other production values spot on. Damn but I hope this is a success. If it is we could be seeing the start of something just like Morse, or Frost, or Dalgliesh, or Wexford, because there are enough of Peter Robinson’s DCI Banks books to fill up a couple of feet of shelf space. Fingers crossed.
2 comments:
Have you tried Mark Billinghams Books. they are very enjoyable.
Sky recently turned the first two into a mini series, which was also very good.
osh, noted - I'll take a look.
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