Have you ever seen the old noir film DOA? It’s from 1950, and opens with probably one of the cleverest openings in cinema. The protagonist would like to report a murder: his own. But what if he had died in the murder? What if he was solving his own murder from beyond the grave? That […]
In Search Of The British Columbo (6): The Racing Game
After leaving the RAF following World War 2, Dick Francis became a leading jockey. Winner of over 350 races, and champion jockey in the 1953-4 season, he was riding Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s horse, Devon Loch, to victory in the 1956 Grand National when the horse inexplicably stumbled with 40 yards to the finish. […]
In Search Of The British Columbo: (5) Lovejoy
Lovejoy. Has it really come to this? Lovejoy. Have I sunk so low as to include a crime drama where the protagonist is not a policeman? And after such a lame clue as that (I know, I know, some of you thought “ranking” was a clue for Ian Rankin, the writer of Rebus, but the […]
In Search Of The British Columbo (4): Inspector Morse
Crossword addicts will have noticed that I embedded “MORSE” into the last paragraph of the previous post. That’s appropriate for today’s candidate, as the series itself played the same trick, embedding clues and red herrings into the soundtrack, appropriately in Morse code. Indeed, Morse’s name was embedded in the opening theme (although some CW pedants […]
In Search Of The British Columbo (3): Dixon Of Dock Green
Not so long ago, a beleaguered and, no doubt, overworked copper was sorting through evidence (who knows why – maybe Walt and Jesse had been up to their old tricks) and came across a bunch of cash marked with the tag PC World. Naturally, they immediately put out a call to see if Police Constable […]