Zaffre Archives

Book review: Whole Life Sentence by Lynda LaPlante

April 12, 20252 min read

I stumbled across Whole Life Sentence by Lynda LaPlante on my iPad while looking through books that were free as part of my Prime TV subscription. I completely missed its release last year but have read and enjoyed the series a lot. I picked that book nine, A Taste of Blood was nearing the point that (Young) Jane Tennison (reintroduced as a naïve, young—and rare—WPC!) becomes the crustier version we meet in Prime Suspect in 1991, before seeing a tweet by the author confirming book ten would be the last.

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Book review: We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker

September 4, 20242 min read

It’s rare that I review older books here rather than new releases but my print book arrivals have dried up lately so I’m reading some books I missed when originally published. We Begin At The End by Chris Whitaker is one of those books I heard a lot about at the time. I’d been thinking about going to Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival at the time (finally making it in 2023) so following along when Whitaker won the Best Fiction award for We Begin At The End. I’ve meant to get my hands on a copy ever since and finally did so. It’s a fairly hefty tome (for crime fiction) at 450+ pages but if I could, I would have read it in a sitting. Instead taking two and I eagerly devoured it. It offers everything I love in a book. It’s bloody well written, it’s thought-provoking with a lot of grey (rather than black and white), it resulted in a roller coaster of feelings and emotions, AND it features a young narrator, which I adore as it can be hard to do well, but when it is… addictive perfection burying me in their world and life.

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Book review: Alibi by Lynda LaPlante

January 7, 20242 min read

Alibi by Lynda LaPlante was originally published in 1998 as Trial & Retribution II and I initially wondered if it’d been revised as there’s mention of someone using a mobile phone. I dug into the recesses of my mind to recall if mobile phones were around back then and think they were…. but only just. And given there’s hefty use of home answering machines I decided it is safe to say it hasn’t been updated but remains firmly set in the late 1990s.

It’s listed as the second in the Trial and Retribution series which was inspired by the TV show of the same name and a reminder what a force LaPlante was in TV-land back then and how ground-breaking her work was!

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Book review: Dark Rooms by Lynda LaPlante

August 16, 20222 min read

Dark Rooms by Lynda LaPlante is the eighth in the series featuring ‘young’ Jane Tennison, although we’ve slowing been working our way from naïve constable to the kinda scary Detective Chief Inspector readers (and viewers) meet in Prime Suspect.

In fact here – even though she’s been prickly and standoffish in the past – I felt she’s more authoritarian. Still kind hearted, but perhaps more judgmental perhaps and contrary.

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Book review: The Curfew by TM Logan

May 19, 20223 min read

As a non-parent I got tired of books about parenting – warring parents and those judging others so have been trying to steer clear of them. The Curfew by TM Logan includes an element of that… relationships between parents and their kids and with other parents, but it’s more about parents trying to get to the bottom of a mystery involving their son… and forced to ponder the extent of that involvement.

So this appealed to mystery-loving me. Someone goes missing. It’s not who we initially think. Or even who we next think. And even then there’s a weird silence around the missing person. Teenaged friends with them at the time are strangely silent when it’s obvious they should be doing everything they can to help them be found. Unless of course they have some other ulterior motive. But how on earth do you get a group of teenagers to keep a secret without one of them caving…. ?

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Book review: Unholy Murder by Lynda LaPlante

August 27, 20212 min read

Unholy Murder is the seventh in the (young) Jane Tennison series. It wasn’t until I started writing this review that I reflected on how Jane’s changed over the course of the books (ie. her career to date). I’m actually quite sure how LaPlante is pacing these but we’re in the 1980s now and obviously getting closer to the original Prime Suspect books and series time-wise.

This series is also a bit of a study in culture and society as – unlike the earliest books – Jane seems to be readily accepted as a police officer now. Definitely respected by her contemporaries and not viewed as an anomaly by the public.

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Book review: Buried by Lynda LaPlante

May 21, 20203 min read

I adore Lynda LaPlante’s Prime Suspect series, along with her ‘young’ Jane Tennison prequels (set in the 1970s) so was excited to see her new release Buried – kicking off a brand new series.

Here we’re introduced to Detective Jack Warr. He’s a bit of an unlikely lead character: he’s not really ambitious and somewhat ambivalent about his career in the Met’s Serious Crimes Squad though many would probably envy the opportunity.

His team is presented with a case however, that intrigues him a little. Even more so when it seems to have personal links to his own family history.

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Book review: The Dirty Dozen by Lynda La Plante

August 19, 20193 min read

It wasn’t until after I read this book (that) it occurred to me we can’t be that far from the Jane Tennison we eventually meet in the Prime Suspect series. Though I guess a decade is a lifetime in Jane’s world.

In the last book in this series Murder Mile, I commented that there seemed to be less sexist crap (misogynist bullshit I think I said) than in previous novels, but sadly her entry into the all-male Flying Squad, sees Jane yet again struggling with prejudice despite ‘integration’ seven years earlier.

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