Protection (Harpur & Iles S.)

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This is a seedy grimy thriller with many unlikeable characters. Even Harpur is difficult to root for, even his own wife distrusts him. Detective Superintendent Colin Harpur (Aneirin Hughes) has to put up with Iles dodgy ways and he just wants to do his job by the book.

Bill James is a former journalist who worked for the Western Mail and South Wales Echo, The Daily Mirror and the Sunday Times. He is the author of the Harpur and Iles crime series, which are published all over the world. Protection, the fourth in the series, was televised by BBC 1 as Harpur and Iles, starring Hywel Bennett. Hollywood is currently negotiating for Halo Parade, number three. His novel Whose Little Girl are You, written under the "David Craig" pseudonym, was filmed as The Squeeze, starring Stacy Keach, Edward Fox and David Hemmings. The fourth Harpur & Iles novel, Protection, was televised by the BBC in 1996 as Harpur & Iles, starring Aneirin Hughes as Harpur and Hywel Bennett as Iles.It's never too late to talk about Bill James. And I like your description of Harpur & Iles' universe. It's like are own, but in a twisted version. Finally, given that you spend a lot of time writing about unsavoury criminal behaviour do you have a jaundiced view of society and mankind in general? Low Pastures goes down the same well trodden streets as the earlier entries in the series, with a heady mixture of witty, unlikely dialogue and plenty of amusing asides. As much a social commentary as a crime novel, James nicely skewers modern society and the pretensions of his criminals who are trying to lift their social standing.

If you knew how to look, a couple of deaths from the past showed now and then in Iles' face."That's from In Good Hands, and it's haunting and beautiful. James can also be laugh-out-loud funny while remaining just as haunting, as in the opening paragraph from The Detective is Dead: In his first book, Bill James applied the same technique of dropping the reader in the midst of an investigation, and it’s a great change of pace for many authors who love to build up everything right from the beginning. The bulk of his output under the Bill James pseudonym is the Harpur and Iles series. Colin Harpur is a Detective Chief Inspector and Desmond Iles is the Assistant Chief Constable in an unnamed coastal city in southwestern England. Harpur and Iles are complemented by an evolving cast of other recurring characters on both sides of the law. The books are characterized by a grim humour and a bleak view of the relationship between the public, the police force and the criminal element. The first few are designated "A Detective Colin Harpur Novel" but as the series progressed they began to be published with the designation "A Harpur & Iles Mystery". Dominating all, however, is the relationship between DCS Colin Harpur and ACC Desmond Iles. Harpur and Iles are trapped in a hellish relationship of need and hatred. Each needs the other's skills to work effectively against the crooks. But Iles hates Harpur for having had an affair with his wife; Harpur is trying to keep Iles away from his underage daughter. And Harpur tries to shore up his Chief Constable, who is recovering from a breakdown, against Iles's constant undermining and baiting. Hywel Bennett, shorn of his baby face and much puffier due to his drinking dominates. There is no subtlety in his character.Most fiction has sex. It's sometimes disguised as romance or love interest. Where would Madame Bovary be without it, or The End of the Affair, or Romeo and Juliet or Anna Karenina or Mills and Boon or Lady Chatterley or Anthony Powell? The second book in Harpur & Iles series takes place shortly after the series debut novel, and we find Colin Harpur and his team in the small fictional town of England collecting leads after the 5th rape and the killing of a 14-year-old girl in the last couple of months. Your comment about oneness of style with content shall likely spark further comment from me. May 09, 2008 Steve Allan said... I'm gratified. I remember the afternoon when I was sitting in a secondhand bookshop, and the laconic owner handed me a copy of Roses, Roses (tenth in the series) and said, "Here. You might like this." (Or was he phlegmatic? Perhaps he was laconic on his mother's side, phlegmatic on his father's.)

Impish and perhaps hyperbolic, but with a purpose. I suspect that no one on this Earth has read enough crime fiction to make such a judgment. But he is the finest crime-fiction prose stylist I have ever read. Did you have in mind folks like G.K. Chesterton, Graham Greene or even Joseph Conrad, if one wants to call The Secret Agent crime fiction? If so, I shall have replies ready. OK, maybe just a bit mischievous. But doing so felt better than hedging and fudging. I have read a number of the other authors you suggested, and all merit consideration in any discussion of prose style among crime writers, perhaps Hill especially. But being deliberately provocative can be fun. Writer: Don Shaw / Novels: Bill James / Producer: Jane Dauncey / Executive Producer: Jen Samson / Director: Jim Hill Assistant Chief Constable Desmond Iles (Hywel Bennett) is an abrasive, cynical copper who has eyes on the top job. This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.

Your criminals display good as well as bad qualities and your policemen (Harpur and Iles in particular) are often rather unpleasant. This blurring of the boundaries between good and evil is obviously important to you - what are you hoping to achieve by doing this?