In the Jane Tennison series, ‘Dark Rooms’ is the eighth book. Jane Tennison, recently promoted to Detective Inspector, is faced with an intricate case for her first investigation. It’s the mid-80s, and Jane has just moved into her new home and is currently renovating it. Jane’s refusal to collaborate with others continues to create problems within the team. The conflicts with her DCI only serve to highlight her unwavering resolve to solve the case, even if she has to work in isolation.
DI Jane Tennison is in charge of investigating the brutal death of a young girl, whose decomposed body was found in an old air raid shelter chained to a bed. After examining the area, she uncovers another body (this one being a baby) in close proximity to the initial body. Tennisons goes into overdrive and is relentless in her pursuit of the murderer, even going overseas.
Jane’s private life and career take centre stage alongside two crimes in this classic La Plante police procedural.
Many thanks to @LaPlanteLynda, @ZaffreBooks and @Tr4cyF3nt0n for a review copy.
About the Author
Lynda La Plante (born Lynda Titchmarsh) is a British author, screenwriter, and erstwhile actress (her performances in Rentaghost and other programmes were under her stage name of Lynda Marchal), best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series.
Her first TV series as a scriptwriter was the six part robbery series Widows, in 1983, in which the widows of four armed robbers carry out a heist planned by their deceased husbands.
In 1991 ITV released Prime Suspect which has now run to seven series and stars Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. (In the United States Prime Suspect airs on PBS as part of the anthology program Mystery!) In 1993 La Plante won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her work on the series. In 1992 she wrote at TV movie called Seekers, starring Brenda Fricker and Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson.
She formed her own television production company, La Plante Productions, in 1994 and as La Plante Productions she wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy She's Out (ITV, 1995). The name "La Plante" comes from her marriage to writer Richard La Plante, author of the book Mantis and Hog Fever. La Plante divorced Lynda in the early 1990s.
Her output continued with The Governor (ITV 1995-96), a series focusing on the female governor of a high security prison, and was followed by a string of ratings pulling miniseries: the psycho killer nightmare events of Trial & Retribution (ITV 1997-), the widows' revenge of the murders of their husbands & children Bella Mafia (1997) (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV 1998), videogame/internet murder mystery Killer Net (Channel 4 1998) and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV 2001).
Two additions to the Trial and Retribution miniseries were broadcast during 2006.