Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Neil Dudgeon, Gwilym Lee, Fiona Dolman, Tamzin Malleson, Una Stubbs, Georgia Taylor, Ed Birch, Charlotte Cornwell, Adam Kotz, Simon Kunz, Howard Ward, James Lance, Kobna- Holdbrook-Smith, Grant Russell,, Raj Awasti, Paul Blackwell, Pamela Betsey Cooper, Anthony Farrelly, Susan Fordham, David Golt, Oona Kirsch, Liberty Mills, John Neville, Shaun Newnham, Terry Noble, Lia Williams, Timothy Watson, Allan Williams.
The world of detective fiction is awash with the super suave, the down at heel gum shoe, the arrogant, the hopelessly romantic and the dodgy as hell, all though you would take to be on your side when in a fight to clear your name and shy away from when you are the one guilty of committing the desperate deed. There are hardly any new detectives any more, all can be seen as harking back to another era in one form or another, it is the manner of the murder though that makes a Detective series so eminently enjoyable.
Perhaps none come close to this ideal of finding more ingenious ways of killing off a character than Midsomer Murders and never arguably more so than in the opening scenes of the 101st story to come out of the popular series than in The Dagger Club.
The spin of the roulette wheel has arguably never been more deadly but it is the death of a popular author three years before hand which makes the case perhaps more interesting for D.C.I. John Barnaby and D.S. Charlie Nelson.
When a much sought after lost manuscript by detective writer George Summersbee comes to light, the residents of one of the many local villages that nestles like an awaiting viper in Midsomer and the local detective fan club, all wait with baited, jealous breath in what the last story of Jed Dagger will contain.
The pen may be mightier than the sword but it doesn’t cut through the realms of jealousy and has no match when up against a murderer out to tarnish a name that has been dead for three years.
With Una Stubbs continuing her great and indeed, warranted, renaissance on the television as the poker loving Audrey Braylesford and James Lance giving a terrific performance as the jealous driven author of combined detective/horror fiction Silas Raven, The Dagger Club has made sure Midsomer Murders keeps to the heights afforded one of the more uniquely ambitious British detective programmes.
Ian D. Hall