Last month I wrote about a couple of British Television Female Detective shows that I enjoy on Netflix and this month I thought I would feature a couple from American Television. You all know that I really enjoyed Cagney and Lacey and thought that show was a breakthrough for strong female detective roles in the 80’s. I even wrote to CBS when they canceled the show the first time like thousands of others to bring it back for the remaining 6 seasons along with each of the made-for-television movies thereafter. Of course, I own all the seasons and the movies so that my mom and I can watch them when we feel like a movie-thon.
There really hasn’t been that many shows in the last 10 years featuring female detectives/crime solvers that have lasted, at least, for more than a season or two except maybe Rizzoli and Isles feature a female police detective and medical examiner in Boston. They lasted 7 seasons from 2010 to 2016. The series is based on books written by Tess Gerritsen who started out as a physician and later became a world-famous writer. The TV show is loosely based on the characters in Ms. Gerritsen’s books At times, the shows were a little silly and not as gritty as the books but on the whole, not badly written and produced. The two actresses Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander are top-rate. I really thought the Women’s Murder Club, book series was written by James Patterson, Andrew Gross and Maxine Paetro, also starred Angie Harmon, but only lasted 1 season. How can a story written by these three not take off and last more than 13 episodes? I have read the entire series so far and will probably go back and re-read them all again soon. I guess it was good for Rizzoli and Isles as they got a great actress for their series but us fans really think the producers and TV network people don’t have a brain cell between themselves.
Of course, we all love the TV series Bones featuring a forensic anthropologist who is teamed up with an FBI agent to solve murders. Her in the Smithsonian with her fellow scientists taking samples, measuring and speculating and then in the field with the hunky FBI guy solving mysteries and catching bad buys. The series is based on the books written by Kathy Reich. But not exactly, if you have read her series then you know that the writers of the show and the author’s books are not really anything alike. My mom and I really have enjoyed the show over the last 12 years and have watched many episodes over and over again in re-runs and on Netflix.
I have only read one of Kathy Reich’s books but my mom has read almost all of them and she liked them no matter that they were not like the TV show but a nice contrast and more gritty version of events and story-lines. You really should check out the writer’s website: https://kathyreichs.com/ “From teaching FBI agents how to detect and recover human remains, to separating and identifying commingled body parts in her Montreal lab, as a forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs has brought her own dramatic work experience to her mesmerizing forensic thrillers. For years she consulted to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina and to the Laboratoire de Sciences Judiciaires et de Médecine Légale for the province of Québec. “ Well now that the TV show has concluded I just may have to get all of Kathy Reich’s books and read them straight through from beginning to end and see how her character has evolved over time and whether the TV show had any influence on the book character over the years.
