Tuesday January 31, 2006

Morse's sidekick earns his stripes

Watched a recording of a pilot of what is going to become a new detective series last night. The program had Lewis from the Inspector Morse series as its main character. He is now an Inspector himself. The program is based in Oxford and a jet lagged Lewis nearly gets run over by a Red Jaguar just like the one his boss used to drive in the original series.There are any throw backs to the Morse programs which is ok as this program had the blessing of John Thaw's wife - he played Morse and Colin Dexter who wrote the books the original series was based upon. Sadly Thaw was to die soon after the Morsecharacter was killed off in the last of the series. This story has Lewis return to Oxford after two years abroad having lost his wife in a hit and run incident. He soon becomes involved in solving a series of murders with his own sidekick a startlingly intelligent sergeant who seems to know everything about nothing. The plot is weak but the shots of Oxford are wonderful to see even if they were taken at a time of the day when there is no sign of the usual endless traffic jams that plague the city. Even a visit to a supermarket shows the store being ridiculously empty. So expect more of these in the future not a patch on the Morse series but to their credit thats not what the producters tried to create.

Dry Bones that Dream - the second part of the Peter Robinson omnibus

This book is the second novel in the Peter Robinson omnibus I wrote about before . I fear reading the second novel straight after the first was not such a good idea. Anyway a brutal murder takes place in a barn where an accountant has his head blown off by a hotgun. His family seem very unshaken by this turn of events. Initially he seems to be a harmless accountant (are there such things?) but soon a web of intrigue develops around him. Bank soon has one of his old partners with him in Yorkshire which gives the case an unexpected twist and complication. It then seems like Banks might have to leave a few loose ends at the end of this case something that clearly annoys him. At the end they catch up with one of the henchmen but there are still twenty odd pages to go. Without much background information we find Banks in Greece but I won't say why. It becomes even stranger when the end of the book appears and leaves you in a state of suspense now knowing what Banks decides to do. Perhaps when I read the follow on book I'll find out. Not a bad story.