TV
#395: A Little Help for My Friends – Finding a Modern Locked Room Mystery for TomCat Attempt #6: Mr. Monk is Cleaned Out (2010) by Lee Goldberg
I can’t claim to’ve watched swathes of the TV series Monk — starring the wonderfully talented Tony Shalhoub as the eponymous consultant to the San Francisco Police Department — but I always enjoyed its creativity when I did catch it (an episode in which a musical birthday card contributes to the solving of a crime stands out in my memory).
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#375: The Tuesday Night Bloggers – The Great Detectives – Week 3
Another week– where does the time go, eh? — another serving of reflections on the Great Detectives of Fiction from the blogosphere…
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#372: The Tuesday Night Bloggers – The Great Detectives – Week 2
Another week, another set of posts from our GAD blogging collective, running down their own personal favourites of the great detectives of fiction.
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#339: Highs & Lows – Tall Tales and Subterranean Shenanigans
Okay, after three weeks of opinion, and with Tyline Perry’s murder-in-a-coalmine-centred The Owner Lies Dead (1930) up for review this Thursday, let’s have some much-needed objectivity: here is a selection of crimes where altitude plays a part.
Disclaimer: All heights are approximate. And fictional.
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#284: Lament for a Maker – Logical Fallacies Abound in The Mentalist Season 1, Episodes 1-8 (2008)
I don’t watch much TV. I’m not going to be pompous about it, I just don’t. Recently, however, I came into possession of the complete run — seven seasons, approximately 800 DVDs — of the US show The Mentalist and was intrigued enough to give it a look. If this is new territory to you, it stars Simons Baker as Patrick Jane, an ex-psychic who following a personal tragedy now helps the seemingly-autonomous California Bureau of Investigation with his keen insight into the crimes they are called to solve.
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#211: Did The X-Files Miss a Trick?
I know, I know, it looks like I’ve forgotten my brief for this blog, but I haven’t. This is something I’ve been mulling for a little while, and I wanted to raise it here to see whether it’s been worth my time.
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#191: Five to Try – My Favourite Jonathan Creek Episodes
Once upon a time he was fully justified in looking this smug…
Dan at The Reader is Warned shares with TomCat and myself an enthusiasm for the impossible crime in fiction, and has put up this list of his five favourite episodes of once-great impossibilty-fest Jonathan Creek. Much to the dismay of, I’m hoping, every single right-thinking person in the world, Jonathan Creek has gone somewhat downhill of late, so such a review of past glories is probably in order, especially if you’ve only encountered the show in its recent, non-windmill form. Because it used to be amazing.
So, below are my top episode picks, arranged by first broadcast date; I’ve also stuck to just the normal, hour-long series episodes because, well, it’s another way of narrowing down from a superb field. So that’s why ‘Black Canary’ isn’t on here, before anyone asks…
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#189: The Tuesday Night Bloggers – Back to the Beginning with Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926)
The Invisible Event 