A young CIA operative/trainee, Annie Walker, is sent into the field to work for the DPD (Domestic Protection Division). Auggie Anderson is a blind tech operative, and is Walker's guide in her new life in the CIA. Walker's cover story is that she works at the Smithsonian Museum.

Ex-cop Jack Taylor earns a reputation for being a tough-as-nails private investigator who's not afraid to take on vigilantes or track down killers.

He's gentle, old-fashioned, decent, and nice even when he's drunk. But these qualities only earn Detective Constable "Dangerous" Davies the scorn of his fellow detectives in a small London police station. His boss tells him straight out that he's the last detective he would assign to a major crime-solving mission. Unlucky in love, rumpled, and accident-prone, Dangerous muddles on and, with help from his eccentric friend Mod, he proves the merits of his dogged, unglamorous method. He likes being a detective, and occasionally he gets to do some good.

Set in the leafy suburbs of 1950s London, the Beresfords find themselves in need of some adventure in their lives. With Tommy undertaking a variety of business opportunities, and Tuppence trying to dissuade him, the couple find themselves in the wrong place at the right time to solve a mystery - or two - and perhaps save someone's life. They are about to enter a world of espionage and skulduggery guided by Tommy's mysterious Uncle, Major Carter. It is a world which will prove easier to enter than to leave.

A half crime Drama/half legal procedure focusing on the Criminal Investigation Department (C.I.D) Detectives who investigate murders involving the people on the streets of London and the Crown Prosecutors who prosecute the defendants in court. The police half focuses on the exciting case load of London Metropolitan Murder Investigation Unit (M.I.U) made up of dedicated officers including recovering alcoholic Senior Detective Sergeant (D.S) Ronnie Brooks (Bradley Walsh), who substitutes booze with food, he is a cop from the East End with a tough past and a big heart. His partner is Junior Detective Sergeant (D.S) Joe Hawkins (Ben Bailey-Smith), a young officer who has come straight from child protection to the murder squad. Their boss DI Wes Leyton (Paterson Joseph) has been through it all and knows the only way to change things is from the inside. Once our police heroes start pounding the streets in the pursuit of their prime suspect by piecing together the clues of each and every heinous crime. They do not stop until the jigsaw is complete and they have enough evidence to make an arrest. But catching the killer isn't always enough, once the crooks are caught and the evidence has been gathered, the Crown Prosecution Service (C.P.S) takes over for the second half and in a tough criminal justice system founded up the belief of 'Innocent until proven guilty' the burden of proof falls on the shoulders of the Prosecutors of the CPS. Fighting furiously for justice week in week out is Senior Crown Prosecutor Jake Thorne (Dominic Rowan), who is supported by the defense barrister turned Junior Crown Prosecutor Kate Barker (Georgia Taylor) and keeping them in check is CPS London director Henry Sharpe (Peter Davison), who steers his office with a steady hand. The CPS team tackle the biggest and most controversial case where life and liberty hang in the balance, These are their stories.

British police procedural television series

Mrs. Adela Bradley (Dame Diana Rigg) could be described as the naughty version of the rather dull Miss Marple: a quintessentially English lady sleuth, before the war, upper class, rich enough for a Rolls-Royce with private driver (George Moody (Neil Dudgeon), her hunky and faithful assistant in nearly everything), a real socialite, always on the road, sassy, even provocative, an arrogant suffragette. But her sharp sense of observation and deduction still gets the best of the criminals every single time.

Former soldier and policeman Jackson Brodie becomes a private investigator.

Despite the red robe and wig, Judge John Deed is no average high court judge. Good-looking, fit and fifty-something, he has a rakish charm that belies his sharp intellect. His passion for justice and his maverick approach set him at odds with the Lord Chancellor's department. This judge's individual approach too often flies in the face of convention for his own good as he determinedly avoids the traditionalism the system tries to force upon him.

DI Frost is an old-school no-nonsense copper who believes in traditional policing methods. Frost uses what he knows about the street to find answers to crimes as a member of Denton's CID. His home life's complex, but his daily nemesis is the station's commander; Supt. Mullett, who's constantly worrying. He doesn't appreciate DI Frost's rough and ready manner, which doesn't stop him from trotting him out - with his George Cross,bestowed upon him.

Garrow's Law is the true tale of barrister William Garrow, who acted as council for the accused, introducing the 'innocent until proven guilty' theory to London's Old Bailey. Guided by mentor Southouse and driven by the affections of a married woman, Garrow goes against the judicial system, changing the path of law and order forever.

Winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Winifred Holtby's greatest novel was published posthumouslyWinifred Holtby's masterpiece is a rich evocation of the lives and relationships of the characters of South Riding. Sarah Burton, the fiery young headmistress of the local girls' school; Mrs Beddows, the district's first alderwoman—based on Holtby's own mother; and Robert Carne, the conservative gentleman-farmer locked in a disastrous marriage—with whom the radical Sarah Burton falls in love. Showing how public decisions can mold the individual, this story offers a panoramic and unforgettable view of Yorkshire life.

A word of warning, my friends: I’ll be giving this the hard sell. To begin, please create in your mind’s eye (and ear) the most interesting tour guide imaginable. He knows all about Victorian England – its people, its paradoxes – and what’s more, he knows what you don’t know but would find fascinating. Transitions back and forth between our modern perspectives and their older, more circumscribed ones are virtually seamless. He’s wise about people, too, their quirks and motivations, independent of setting. Oh, and the language. . . every word is perfect. You’ll hardly notice the passing hours. Right from the very beginning this omniscient fellow speaks directly to you, promises you intimate details (some of which are dark and surprising, even a bit graphic), and lures you straight into 1875. You’re in very deep soon enough, utterly beguiled. Character-driven, with the plot riding shotgunI think it’s a disservice to reveal much of the plot. The narrator/tour guide will get to what’s relevant when the time is right. I will summarize the inside flap, though, which I figure is fair game. William Rackham, the purposeless heir to a perfume manufacturer, meets Sugar, the clever and willing young prostitute who suddenly fills him with ambition. He takes over his father’s business, enjoys a quick reversal of fortune, and sees to Sugar’s ascent from the squalor so that he can have her all to himself. What follows is a whole lot of interplay between these characters and a well-drawn host of others. The primary ones are:The aforementioned William – self-centered but not entirely vile; a would-be essayist and wag; a man defined and even a bit constrained by his social standing and the times.The aforementioned Sugar – enterprising and smart; a devotee of [pun alert] Dale Carnalgie’s How to Win Johns and Manipulate People; riveting to see how her people smarts and hooker’s talent for prevarication play out in chess matches of actions and reactions.Agnes – William’s wife who is actually somewhat deranged (we as readers are clued in to the cause even though the characters are not); beautiful yet naïve; almost laughably shallow by modern standards as the product of a finishing school.Henry – William’s older brother who is in certain ways the better chap; would rather have been a man of the cloth than a man of commerce (as their father had originally hoped); earnest as the day is long but unable to suppress those pesky animal urges.Emmeline Fox – a somewhat iconoclastic widow who does social work to help prostitutes in need; the object of Henry’s affections; one with a better applied sense of religion; ill but unyielding.Sophie – William’s six-year-old daughter who begins as a near non-entity but turns into a character with surprising depth; much of her blossoming is due to a source I shan’t divulge. Interesting others, among them prostitutes whose hearts range from gold to substances not nearly so glittery, a leech-toting doctor who sees to poor Agnes, and a couple of William’s friends from school – abominable but pretty damned funny.Victorian London, seeds and allIt was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Sorry. . . that’s unoriginal. But Dickens comes to mind for a reason. There were still many hardships for the poor, class distinctions were endemic, and byzantine morals lay beneath thin but glossy surfaces. The narrator states, “no righteous man must dare to think of the flesh, and no righteous woman must be aware of having it. If an exuberant barbarian from a savage fringe of the Empire were to stray into St. James's Park and compliment one of these ladies on the delicious-looking contours of her flesh, her response would most likely be neither delight nor disdain, but instant loss of consciousness.” Yet prostitution and pornography were booming. Conflict is easy to come by in a setting like this. It need not be manufactured or contrived. Faber said, plausibly enough, that he did a huge amount of research into the times, but didn’t actually use much of it. He said he hates when authors try so desperately to show off their knowledge to justify their efforts in obtaining it. Faber’s goal instead was to paint a vivid picture without ever allowing the pace to bog down. He hoped there was none of that “Let’s pause here for some historical stuff.” And there wasn’t.Purple prose? Pshaw! While the Victorian setting makes a certain richness of prose seem natural, there was a conscious effort to mix in faster paced elements, too. This was done so well that the writing, while lush, never felt overly verbose or ponderous; this despite longer sentences and even occasional adverbs. (In an interview, Faber made fun of Stephen King’s book on writing that basically said a pox upon modifiers. My feeling is that King may be right for most writers, but exceptions must be made for those like Faber who are so good at choosing them; you know, advisedly, unerringly.) Analysis (sans spoilers) I mentioned already that the writing is both sumptuous and fast-paced, a mix of old and new. It seems the same can be said for its literary classification. Pomo, you might ask? Well, yes and no. The narrator at the very beginning makes no bones about the fact that you’re reading a novel. And he switches between multiple POV characters, occasionally speaking directly to us as modern-day readers. Some have even called this “tricksy”, though those same people also admit that in Faber’s capable hands, it works. For the most part, though, the book features older style narration. Faber’s answer to an interview question speaks clearly to the way he wants this to be perceived. “I'm not impressed when authors rub their readers' faces in the fact that a book is only an artificial construct, that characters are not real, that it's all an exercise in deception and intellectual conceit. There's nothing new or clever about this. Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy did it to perfection two hundred and fifty years ago.”For me the most interesting question is how a book so long never once bored me. It wasn’t just the setting or the writing, though both were appealing. I suspect it had more to do with how real the characters seemed. Faber said that in an earlier draft William was more villainous, but was rewritten to become more likeable and complex. This made his bad behavior all the more poignant since it came from someone I cared to learn about. Sugar was revealed in even greater detail as she vied for influence and a better life. We’re granted valuable access to her hopes, fears, sensibility, and schemes. When I sit for a tick to think about it, it’s the way the characters are revealed (through dialog, the story, the inner voices, and that amazing narrator’s talent for description) that makes this the best book I’ve read in quite a while. The sense of a non-endingThis book is not loved universally. By far the most common complaint is the lack resolution at the end. Maybe The Sopranos helped prepare me, but I kind of liked the open-endedness. Some have surmised that after 900 pages, Faber just ran out of steam. As meticulously drawn as the storyline was up to that point, though, I suspect Faber wanted us to speculate. It made the story even truer to life, where loose threads dangle all over the map. Faber evidently caved in to the pressure and later wrote a book of short stories called The Apple New Crimson Petal Stories that features the same characters. Whether it truly ties up loose ends, or is up to the standards of this one, I don’t know. But I plan to find out.Trust meRead this book! If not immediately, then soon. And if you don’t trust my judgment, check out the review by Goodreads luminary Paul Bryant. Maybe an Englishman, and one not so profligate with his stars, can convince you.

Story is set against the backdrop of WWI and follows Christopher Tietjens, a top civil servant from a background of wealth and privilege, whose marriage flounders almost as soon as it begins. He falls in love with another woman, but he remains honorable for some considerable time to Sylvia who has several affairs. On top of this, Chris is dealing with shell shock and partial memory loss that he endures during the war.

Things I might watch