Author Peter Robinson was interview on the Archive was back in Feb - click HERE to read the interview.
The Banks books are excellently structured crime novels, with convoluted plots that grip the reader and out of all the fictional coppers Alan Banks is one of the most real feeling. But how has the character transferred to the television screen? Well in my opinion, very well. Actor Stephen Tomkinson can emote with his eyes closed and all his thespian skills are brought to the fore to ensure Banks comes across as a credible screen creation. The straightforward way in which the story is told does make this seem clichéd at time, which is a pity because the book most certainly wasn't. And the twisty plot points are telegraphed well in advance. At the end I was waiting for a twist that just didn't come. The story also slows down too much in places and things tend to drag
Out of the two recent crime debuts I think I preferred Thorne which unlike Aftermath, cast aside the tried and tested structure for British crime dramas and went the American route - once we British made the best television drama in the world but over recent decades the US has taken the lead and we Brits can not produce anything like The Wire, 24, Deadwood or Dexter. So Thorne was wise to mimic the faster American style while Aftermath is paced like an old episode of Frost or Morse.
Still there's more to come and I did think that Tompkinson was excellent and the source books are absolutely excellent, so I do hope the series does well. Hopefully future episodes will be far better paced.
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