BINGEING ON CRIME
DCI Banks (Amazon Prime)
This detective series is a BBC production from several years ago. I think it is excellent. Alan Banks is a middle-aged chief inspector in Yorkshire with a dour demeanor and a sometimes-sour look. You’d think he’d be hardnosed, but underneath that façade, he is compassionate toward victims and diplomatic when necessary. Yet, he drives his team forcefully in the hunt for any killer. His primary colleagues are two women: DS Annie Cabbot, a smart energetic individual who’s in love with Banks, and DI Helen Morton, a by-the-book precise person dealing with complexities in her own life.
Each case is over two episodes. The cases are complicated with multiple threads which is what makes them engaging. There are crime scenes, but they are not overly gruesome. The focus is on identifying suspects, following up links, and arriving at answers as to who killed a person and why. The TV series is based on author Peter Robinson’s long running book series which now totals twenty-six titles. Highly recommended!
The Fall (Netflix)
Set in Belfast, The Fall is a crime series about a serial killer and the detective from London who is brought in to oversee an earlier failed murder investigation. Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson sees linkages between a much earlier murder and more recent ones, but they have no solid leads. Paul Spector, the serial killer, is smart and ruthless. He stalks young professional women and then breaks into their homes to do them in. He leads a double life as a grief counselor and a married father of two young children. Gibson is a complex character also, a sharp, high-ranking woman in a field dominated by men. And the setting in Northern Ireland with its political issues adds another layer of tension.
What holds my interest is the police investigative work. The enactments of the murders are graphic. At this point, after four episodes of Season 1, I am ready to quit. The pace is measured, the crime images troubling. Although it received high praise as a psychological thriller, I don’t really recommend it, unless you are strong-hearted. For those who are curious, there are three seasons.
CHANGE OF PACE READING
The Stationery Shop by Marjan Kamali
I stumbled upon a reference to this novel online and ordered it. It is beautiful. Set in Tehran in 1953 and in the Boston suburbs in 2013, it’s a love story. But a love story marked by political upheaval, class distinctions, and the passage of time, decades even. Roya and Bahman meet in a stationery shop in 1953 just before the coup that ousts the Iranian prime minister. They are seventeen, passionate about one another, and eager to spend their lives together.
With the political crisis, everything changes and Roya leaves Iran to attend college in California. She marries Walter and has a mostly satisfactory life. When she’s 77, an unexpected encounter opens a floodgate of memories and the chance to re-visit part of her past.
Kamali has a delicate style. She weaves together strands of politics and Persian food and culture into a novel about parental love, familial obligations, and romance. For more information about Kamali’s childhood in Iran and her life in the States, follow the link on her name above.
MY STATIONERY SHOP
Like Roya and Bahman in the novel above, I too sought quietude, but no romance, in my local bookstore. G. W. Ockenfels was located downtown. They sold books, but also greeting cards and stationery. It was a quiet shop, with a wooden floor and aisles with tall shelves as I recall, and the smell of paper and ink. Mr. and Mrs. Ockenfels who owned and ran it were always welcoming.
I was in my teens, and didn’t have much spending money. Customers were few and I could browse uninterrupted for long periods. Over time, I became a regular, known to them by face and then by name. After I had selected and paid for a book, it was always carefully wrapped in pale blue paper and then meticulously tied up with very thin twine.
In later years, Mr. O. became a bit confused. He also began dispensing bear hugs that then were uncomfortable, but today might be reportable. It was a sanctuary for me that became a little less so and then, as often happens in small towns, the Ockenfels went out of business.
Note: Header and book jacket photo ©JWFarrington.
