About the book…
My thanks to Tracy at Compulsive Readers, and publishers Zaffre for having me as part of the amazing #TeamTennison ! First up , we go back to the beginning with ‘Tennison’, first published in 2018.
1973. After leaving the Metropolitan Police Training Academy, 22 year-old Jane Tennison is placed on a probationary exercise in Hackney, London where criminality thrives. At first she struggles to deal with the shocking situations she faces, receiving no help or sympathy from her superiors. Jane feels out of her depth in this male-dominated, chauvinistic environment.
Then she is given her first murder case . . .
It needs to be said-Lynda LaPlante doesn’t do lazy.
Many might think that after a long , illustrious and critically acclaimed career in television and books, this might be digging over old bones, giving a back story to a character who is so well formed, so ingrained in the public consciousness, as Jane Tennison is.
I refer the reader back to the first line of this review.
Who else but Lynda LaPlante would have the sheer guts to take her most recognisable creation, step her back 50 years and create a whole history for her whilst dedicating the first novel, Tennison, to the remarkable woman who portrayed her?
It’s a bold and courageous feat, it could have resulted, as in a Hannibal Lecter-esque vein (no pun intended) that the more you know, the less you relate to or care about the character, as I personally felt reading each post ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ novel.
Jane is here, on her first foray into the criminal underworld in a post-Krays but still crime riddled London. She has passed probation and is about to come face to face with the intricacies of 1970’s policing, on the back of outrage at the co-sexed police department, fighting to be seen and heard both culturally and personally. Her enthusiasm and willingness to be part of that thin blue line is not going to be enough to sustain her indefinitely….
We meet her on day 1, torn between a sense of duty and sense of community spirit as she travels on a bus to work, not conspicuously representing the police force (in case of reprisals) In a neat mirroring to today’s climate of mistrust of the police, the uniform she fought so hard to wear,is one she has to hide.
Stepping out on the wrong foot on day 1 is one thing, it’s the myriad of little details that create a wave of nostalgia and also set the reader up to involve themselves in a crime of a different sort-one where crime scene photos are Polaroids, telephones are answered by real people and notes taken on pen and paper. It gives an sense of solidity and permanence in a world where things currently feel ephemeral and replaceable and places challenges in the way of those trying to solve the murder of a young girl, a drug addict and possible prostitue.
There is another mirroring here, that of the manner of death which reflects series one of ‘The Commander’, which I am currently re-watching on BritBox, and the stripped down details of a post mortem set 50 years ago-god it hurts to write that, I was born in 1975!!!!-which we see through Jane’s eyes as her,and our, first one. Strangled by her bra, actually killed by the means which the patriarchal society confines and controls one of the most evident symbols of womanhood, seems a particularly nasty and devious motif, doubly damning.
We know the end point of Jane’s journey, so joining her at the start is an absolute privilege, to see how she was forged in a family who don’t really ‘get’ her, a system that doesn’t value her as a woman, or a police officer, balanced with an integral need to fight for the underdog and see justice done. She is flawed, imperfect and eager to learn, Julie-Ann’s death is assigned a value by many as ‘no better than she deserved’, which flies out of the page and again, reminds me of the Yorkshire Ripper amongst others who felt these women were undesirable, replaceable and not worthy. Her death and the way it is investigated, is the jumping on point for a career of a formidable police woman who is, at her heart, a resilient survivor of trauma, sexism, corruption and many, many attempts to take her down.
The nostalgic yearning is tempered with a notion that hindsight is always 20/20, we have come so far since those early 70’s days, haven’t we? Or at least we’d like to think so.
A solid and determined police procedural which echoes Tennison’s footsteps down the corridors of Hackney Police Station, it investigates murder and theft with a fresh eye and freshness which beguiles and entrances, even as it challenges the most determined arm chair detective to work out just who did what and to whom. And, most importantly, why.
About the author…
Lynda La Plante‘s fourteen novels, including the Prime Suspect series, have all been international bestsellers. She is an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and a member of the UK Crime Writers Awards Hall of Fame.
She was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2008 and in 2009 was inducted into the Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Her novels have all been international bestsellers.
She runs her own television production company and lives in London and Easthampton, New York.
Twitter @LaPlanteLynda @simonschusteruk @Tr4cyF3nt0n
Author
bridgeman.lenny@gmail.com