A troubled gumshoe, a will-they-won’t-they relationship and an intricate plot which doesn’t quite hang together. As a crime series Strike hasn’t exactly blazed a trail across the detective fiction genre.
JK Rowling hasn’t pioneered much in her writing career and in Strike: Lethal White, all the classic tropes are dug up once more.
The Harry Potter author – writing as Robert Galbraith – penned the novels upon which the BBC detective series is based.
Our hero, the remarkably named Cormoran Strike, is back delving into another murder case but the biggest unsolved mystery so far is why they bothered.
Cormoran is the dishevelled war veteran, limping along in the footsteps of a hundred other fictional detectives, solving crimes but barely able to look after himself.
Tom Burke makes a decent fist of a character, as does Holliday Grainger, as Robin, the partner who moons over him.
The relationship between classmates was the high point of Rowling’s wizarding books, and that remains her forte.
Intricate mysteries? Not so much.
Strike: Lethal White sees Cormoran and Robin reunite to uncover a blackmail plot, and solve a crime from decades ago.
The two threads won’t be united, surely? It’s a mystery all right.
Strike: Lethal White BBC1, Sun, 9pm
All Or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur
In the brilliant 1997 documentary, There’s Only One Barry Fry, the gobby football executive ducked and dived his way running lower league Peterborough United. There was football, frankness and lots of F-words.
Sadly that spirit doesn’t pervade All Or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, a behind-the-scenes look at Jose Mourinho’s first season in charge of the London club.
The Special One doesn’t quite do swearies like Barry Fry once did. In saying that, Fry is still at Peterborough. Come on, Amazon, make it happen…
Amazon Prime, streaming now
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