Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
This is the fifth in the Jane Tennison series by La Plante, though a prequel that deals with her early career as a young police officer. It’s set in the 1980s, a time where high-level corruption into the Metropolitan Police was investigated under the aegis of ‘Operation Countryman’.
Tennison is ostensibly the first female officer, ranked as a Detective Sergeant in the Flying Squad, aka ‘The Sweeny’. (The
anti-corruption officers were called the Sweedy- police humour – can’t beat
it!)
The Squad base is Rigg Approach in East London, which was to feature later years in yet more anti-corruption activity with
the Sweeney.
The author’s portrayal of the world at the time is reasonably accurate and
I can testify to the ‘esprit de corps’ amongst its members having dealt with
one of them for drink drive in an unmarked squad car and being heavily leaned
on by their ‘guvnors’ to lose the paperwork with dire threats if I failed to
comply. (I didn’t!)
Tennison is resented by her colleagues for her gender, her ability and relative lack of service (6 years). La Plante presents us with a world of tropes around these resentments, sexism, dishonesty, perceived corruption, casual and overt racism all in the cadre of an investigation into a team of armed ‘blaggers’ living in Chingford but operating out of Tottenham.
The pursuit of these criminals is the spine of the novel, but it includes Tennison’s personal development and her response to the male dominated world, handled as sub-text beneath the main narrative thrust.
It is a readable thriller but at times is has clunky moments and often didactic. La Plante has done her research, and no doubt taken advice but reads unevenly at times. One officer states his partner is working ‘out on J division’ whereas they would have said ‘out on J’, the word ‘Division’ would have been deemed superfluous. Surveillance officers are cited as coming from ‘CO11’ when it should have been ‘C11’, but these are minor quibbles (from a book reviewing former police officer), when taken in context to the narrative.
Ultimately despite all her reservations, Tennison succeeds in winning-over her colleagues thus gaining a measure of acceptance within the police, if not with all her superiors.
The book is a competent thriller with its more-or-less accurate portrayal of the policing world of the early 1980’s where a female Commissioner would have been unthinkable.
Thank heavens for some progress, as the men and women in blue and black in today’s police operate in more enlightened times.
