Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (9)

In this, the last of the Favourite Discovery of 2015 posts, Geoff Jones chooses a new to him author.

Geoff Jones's Favourite Discovery of 2015

My new author has to be Alex Marwood, until I recently read The Darkest Secret I was going to nominate Jake Woodhouse, however Alex's book was brilliant, certainly an unputdownable one. The characters, the plot, the storytelling were first rate.

As you may suspect she is a journalist of some renown under her given name of Serena Mackesy. She has written a few books under her own name. However she really caught the crime and mystery readers attention under her pseudonym, with The Wicked Girls and The Killer Next Door.

Read them and enjoy a master storyteller.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (8)

The penultimate entry in the series of posts containing the Euro Crime reviewers' Favourite Discoveries of 2015 is my own, rambling contribution!

Firstly, to continue the DVD theme of previous posts, I have two recommendations:

The Saboteurs which was shown on tv but I caught up with on DVD courtesy of the library.

It's the Second Word War and the story is told from the point view of the Germans, the British and the Norwegians; it revolves around the production of heavy water in Norway which is wanted in Germany to create an atomic bomb.

When a Norwegian scientist escapes to Britain he is recruited to oversee the Allies operation to infiltrate the Norwegian factory in Telemark and destroy its heavy water making facilities.

With a multi-national cast speaking in their own languages this was a gripping drama and having not seen the film The Heroes of Telemark and showing my ignorance of this time period, this was all new to me.

My second recommendation is Agent Carter which though set in the US stars a trio of British actors: Hayley Atwell, Dominic Cooper and the (hilarious) James D'Arcy - unrecognisable from Broadchurch.

It's 1946 New York and Atwell plays Peggy Carter, a British agent with the Strategic Scientific Reserve. She has been relegated to tea-making even though she's sharper than all the male agents put together.

Agent Carter is recruited by Howard Stark to clear his name which means going against the organisation she works for.

So begins a cat and mouse chase with the net ever tightening on Peggy.

I was a little dubious after the first episode which was very Alias-y with Peggy in a wig however I stuck with it and found it very tense and enjoyable.




Next, going off topic a little now, 2015 was the year I rediscovered my interest in the Tudor period. I think it began with the superlative Wolf Hall drama - the soundtrack is marvellous - though my OH refers to it as "that melancholy music"...

Then, as the library has not been buying as many books this year due to a book fund "pause", I have been trying books I perhaps wouldn't have usually. And so Philippa Gregory's The Taming of the Queen, about Catherine Parr, fell into my hands. And so the Tudor floodgates have opened. I have bought a box-set of Jean Plaidy books - I may have read some of these a long time ago but it's so long ago they'll seem fresh! - and have checked out from the library, books on Henry VIII's queens. So far I've concentrated my reading on Catherine Parr and can recommend Elizabeth Norton's The Temptation Of Elizabeth Tudor which covers the time when Elizabeth was staying with her step-mother, as well as Norton's biography, Catherine Parr.

My other rediscovery is Michael Connelly - but more on him in a separate post.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (7)

Michelle Peckham picks a ground-breaking British tv series as her Favourite Discovery of 2015.

Michelle Peckham's Favourite Discovery of 2015

Prime Suspect: all 7 series (which were reshown on the TV this year, but were also available to download on special offer).

I don’t think I ever watched all of these, and was particularly interested in the first couple of series.

Helen Mirren makes for an excellent detective in these police procedurals, a strong woman in a man’s world, giving perhaps too much to the job, with her private life suffering as a consequence. She is dedicated, committed, and a clever manipulator.

Excellent watching!

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (6)

Norman Price champions the star of two British crime series in his Favourite Discovery of 2015.

Norman Price's Favourite Discovery of 2015

My Favourite Discovery of 2015 was Nicola Walker

Nicola Walker has had a long acting career starting with the Cambridge Footlights, and going on to have roles top TV series such as Spooks, Last Tango in Halifax and Scott and Bailey.

But 2015 was the year she starred in two brilliant crime series, Unforgotten on ITV, which premiered on 8 October, and River on BBC1, which premiered on the 13 October.

In River she played DS Stevie Stevenson, former partner of the troubled DI John River played by Stellan Skarsgard, who sees dead people. As with most good crime series on TV the supporting cast was excellent with long suffering DS Ira King played by Adeel Akhtar, as River's new partner, and the superb Leslie Manville as DCI Chrissie Read.


Unforgotten covers the complex investigation into a 39 year old murder with Nicola Walker in charge as DCI Cassie Stuart, with her assistant DS Sunil "Sunny" Khan, played by Sanjeev Bhaskar. Once I got used to the disconcerting situation that Walker was playing two police parts on different channels, and that Sanjeev Bhaskar is best known as a comedian, I really enjoyed Unforgotten. These two were really a great combination and were not overshadowed by a supporting cast of acting heavyweights including Tom Courtenay, Bernard Hill, Peter Egan, Trevor Eve, Cherie Lunghi and Hannah Gordon among others.

Both these home grown series were top notch and it shows that we don't have to rely on Nordic or US television for our diet of crime fiction. If you haven't watched them you are in for a treat. I will be on the look out for anything starring Nicola Walker in future.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (5)

It's Terry Halligan's turn to reveal his Favourite Discoveries of 2015 and these are two subtitled series, available on DVD.

Terry Halligan's Favourite Discoveries of 2015

Generation War in German with subtitles and is in a two DVD set.

Career-soldier Wilhelm, his pacifist younger brother Friedhelm, and their friends Charlotte, Viktor and Greta say farewell in the summer of 1941 in Berlin, with the promise to meet again after the war. Wilhelm and his brother have been ordered to the eastern front, Charlotte will join them as a nurse in a field hospital there. In Berlin, Greta makes a name for herself as a singer, with the help of a high-ranking party official. Her Jewish boyfriend, Viktor is despatched to a concentration camp in the east. Little do they know how much the unfathomable experiences, deprivations and terrors of the war will change them. It is the experiences of friendship and betrayal, belief and disappointment, illusion and insight, guilt and responsibility that will change their lives forever. 

I was very moved by the story which I found brilliantly told and particularly interesting as it is told from a different viewpoint to the usual British or American one that one is so used to.

Braquo is the name of a French police detective series. The name relates to French slang for "heist"and the programme which stretches over several series, details the adventures of Hauts-de-Seine's district police department and in particular four best friends and colleagues who are out to avenge the death of a colleague who committed suicide after being unfairly blamed after a failed operation. It is not for the more sensitive viewer who is easily shocked as it is very brutal in the storyline. In the first episode a police officer rams a biro into the eye of a rape suspect and it continues on the same lines throughout several series. It is said to be France's alternative to The Wire or The Shield.

I watched three complete series of this very dramatic programme with great enjoyment and can't wait for the fourth.

In the meantime I've ordered another French detective TV box set, Spiral, which runs to five series so far and I'm looking forward to viewing it in due course.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (4)

The next entry in the Euro Crime reviewer's Favourite Discoveries of 2015 is both a book and a DVD, recommended by Amanda Gillies.

Amanda Gillies's Favourite Discovery of 2015

The Pianist. Co-produced and directed by Roman Polanski (2002) and written by Wladyslaw Szpilman (1946 in Polish and 1998 in English)

I both saw the movie and read the Kindle version of the book in the same weekend. The experience completely blew me away, so this has to be my New Discovery recommendation to you for 2015. Not fiction, but most definitely crime, true crime, “The Pianist” tells the story of one man’s battle to survive in war-torn Warsaw in Word War II. Young Jewish man, Wladyslaw Szpilman is a talented pianist who manages to escape from the German deportations of Jews to extermination camps. He survives life in the Warsaw ghetto and goes into hiding when the ghetto is destroyed. Time after time his talent as a musician saves him from certain death and when his hiding place is accidentally discovered he must give the performance of a lifetime to keep his life.



I loved the way the film was shot and the way the sheer horrors that thepeople experienced were portrayed. Over and over I was sure that Szpilman’s luck would run out and was exhausted at the end. I was also delighted to see that the film stuck very closely to the book and missed nothing out. Polanksi produced a masterpiece of a film and it is a shame that Szpilman died before the film was released. This, of course, gives away the fact that he survives the war but this is no secret as he goes on in later life to become a famous and accomplished musician.

Very Highly Recommended – but a box of tissues is necessary!

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (3)

The next entry in the Euro Crime reviewer's Favourite Discoveries of 2015 is a new publisher, recommended by Rich Westwood.

Rich Westwood's Favourite Discovery of 2015

My discovery of the year is the publisher Dean Street Press, one of the small number of independent publishers resurrecting classic crime fiction for a new generation equipped with e-readers.

They came to my attention early in the year with two novels by George Sanders. George Sanders was a Hollywood star from the 1930s onwards, appearing in Hitchcock’s Rebecca, a number of films playing the Saint and the Falcon, and as the voice of Shere Khan. He wrote (or more probably just put his name to) two very enjoyable and very different novels. CRIME ON MY HANDS is narrated by a fictionalised 'George Sanders' and is a screwball mystery played out on the set of a western in Northern California. STRANGER AT HOME is a far more serious affair with a degenerate LA high-life setting reminiscent of Raymond Chandler.

Dean Street Press followed the Sanders novels with two by Ianthe Jerrold, a virtually forgotten Golden Age mystery writer. THE STUDIO CRIME, published in 1929, begins with the murder of an art dealer in St John's Wood. The irresistibly named John Christmas plays the part of amateur sleuth. His friendly rivalry with Scotland Yard bears comparison with his Golden Age peers, but in a nice variation on the trope, his friends are sceptical and unwilling to subscribe to his great amateur detective lifestyle.

DEAD MAN'S QUARRY, first published in 1930, could well be my favourite reissue of the year. It opens with a group of young people (and one parent) on a cycling holiday in a polite and ordered countryside, where the consistency of boiled eggs is the main topic of conversation. As events unfold, we meet suspicious locals, mysterious strangers, ginger beer bought at cottages, and that old staple the remote shepherd's hut. And there is a full supporting cast of rustics (who all add something to the story): a philosophically philandering footman, a poetic shepherd, and a grumpy pub landlord. All great fun.

After Jerrold, Dean Street Press has moved on to the somewhat fuller back catalogues of E R Punshon (fifteen titles), Annie Haynes (seven titles), and Harriet Rutland (three titles).

It's great to see these authors given a chance to reach new audiences so long after their heyday, and I hope to see many more new discoveries next year.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (2)

The next entry in the Euro Crime reviewer's Favourite Discoveries of 2015 is a TV series/DVD, recommended by Lynn Harvey.

Lynn Harvey's Favourite Discovery of 2015

My favourite discovery of 2015 was Brit-crime television serial “RIVER”.

I confess that I don't watch many Brit-crime series on the telly so let me make my apologies now to die-hard fans of the genre. However this six-parter (BBC One and Netflix) which was created and written by Abi Morgan (The Hour, Suffragette) was a breath of strange fresh air that hooked me from the start.

Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard plays John River, a London police detective who carries on convincing conversations with voices in his head and sees dead people. Shocked by losing his long-term police partner (Nicola Walker), River bemuses his new partner (Adeel Akhtar) as they strike out in pursuit of a killer. The search takes River through the streets of contemporary London, rattling many shocked passers-by in the process, and what develops is a layered twister of a crime plot. Skarsgard is both powerful and subtle. In fact the entire cast is seriously good, including Eddie Marsan as the malevolent Thomas Cream, a Victorian serial killer who stalks through River's brain whenever he is at his most vulnerable.

“RIVER” is a great ensemble piece whose plot, photography, compassion and performances make up a persuasive and moving whole. True, I lost my partner's viewing-company after a couple of episodes but flashback scenes and "hallucinations" are a stretch too far for his plot-following capabilities – and he was plainly puzzled by the concept of a Swede being a detective in the British police. However, as you can see, none of this was a problem for me. I ate it all up. I loved it all: performances, plot, writing – and I was not alone amongst my acquaintances in being moved by the events uncovered and the ending.

Can or will such an ensemble piece come back for a second series? Much as I loved it, I have my doubts. So I recommend that you catch “RIVER” in any way you can. Well I would, wouldn't I.

Favourite Discoveries of 2015 (I)

As per usual I have asked my fellow Euro Crime reviewers to come up with their favourite crime fiction discovery of the past year - be it book, film or tv series.

The first entry comes from Mark Bailey.

Mark Bailey's Favourite Discovery of 2015

My favourite discovery of 2015 was the DVDs of the French television series Les Petits Meurtres D'Agatha Christie (Agatha Christie's Little Murders) – I started out with the Region 1 box set put out by Acorn and got hooked in by the second series featuring Commissaire Laurence Swan (played by Samuel Labarthe), Alice Avril – a journalist (Blandine Bellavoir) and Swan's secretary Marlène (Élodie Frenck) who investigate crimes in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais in the 1950s.

The films (just over 90 minutes each) are a twist on Agatha Christie with basic plots intact but are very loose adaptations with a little more in the way of humour, gore and emotional relationship that one is used to with the British adaptations. They also travel a lot more over the canon – the 2015 films were Mademoiselle MacGinty Est Morte (Mrs McGinty's Dead), Un meurtre est-il facile? (Murder is Easy), Murder Party (A Murder is Announced) and Pension Vanilos (Hickory Dickory Dock) .

The addiction is such now that I am buying the DVDs from France when they are released and have the 2015 releases lined up for over Christmas to practice my rusty French on (there are no English language subtitles for the latest ones and indeed most of them – only 7 to date are available with English language subtitles of the 22 in the series and the 4 part ‘pilot’ Petits meurtres en famille (based on Hercule Poirot's Christmas)).

Why do I like them so much – because they are fun; they play with the conventions of Agatha Christie, have good characterisation and have characters that do develop as the series goes on (especially Marlène).