Bridget O’Donnell’s Top Ten Fictional Detectives
Bridget O'Donnell gives you a run-down of her top ten fictional detectives...
Bridget O'Donnell gives you a run-down of her top ten fictional detectives.
1. Inspector John Rebus – a classically flawed yet brilliant police detective living in the beautiful city of Edinburgh, where I lived as a student and loved.
2. Jimmy McNulty – another handsome maverick cop with an Irish rebellious streak, sounds rather like another policeman I know…
3. Jane Tennison – a fabulously poised female detective, succeeding in a tough man’s world.
4. Sabrina Duncan – Charlies Angels – because I adored her as child. She may not have been as fluffy or as pretty as the others but she certainly had wit and a tad more intellect.
5. Jules Maigret – discovered during a long rainy weekend in a caravan many years ago.
6. Lisbeth Salandar and Mikael Blomkvist – not police, but detectives all the same, Lisbeth is a refreshing, original character and I can relate to the journalist ‘detective’, Mikael.
7. Mr. Whicher – Kate Summerscale’s fantastic Victorian detective, who broke the mould and was proved to have been right all along.
8. Sherlock Holmes – one of the original and the best.
9. Miss Marple – simple but always satisfying tales by the great Agatha Christie, particularly well played on television by Joan Hickson, a little mouse with hidden claws.
10. Magnum PI – for the grand moustache and kitsch Hawaii backdrop.
Inspector Minahan Makes a Stand
by Bridget O'Donnell
In Victorian London, the age of consent was just thirteen. Unwitting girls were regularly enticed, tricked and sold into prostitution. All the while, the Establishment turned a blind eye. That is until Irish inspector Jeremiah Minahan wrote an incendiary report. The findings Minahan did reveal in 1885 sparked national outrage: riots, arrests, a tabloid war and a sensational trial…other secrets were so fearful he took them to his grave, where they remained - until now. This is the true tale of a man caught between a corrupt English Establishment and his own rebel heart: a very Victorian scandal, but also, a story for our times.