Over the past few months, I have spent the ‘lockdown’ nights reading detective fiction and watching crime shows on Netflix. I’m partial to that genre: British crime dramas, and thrillers by John Le Carre (and only him). As the pandemic stretches indefinitely, and as summer peaks, I find myself turning to traditionally twisty murder mysteries set amidst comfortingly beautiful landscapes. I spend the day advising assorted clients on the phone or, when the matter is quite sensitive, then on Telegram. My clients invariably fall into one of two categories: those who would like a divorce and, quite disparately, activists who have been summoned by the crime branch for some ‘baat-cheet’.
All of last week I watched Shetland, eponymously set in the Scottish archipelago with its emerald hills and its rugged coast. Each time there is a murder, the police detectives drive all over the island to witnesses’ homes to chat with them, form a narrative about the murder, identify a suspect—and it’s only when they gather enough independent evidence that the suspect brought in for questioning, and then formally charged, or if she is only a red herring in the story, then let off.