Forgive me a little self-indulgence, but something I have waited all my life for – perhaps without even realising it – has arrived: a smart, sassy, tough telly detective from… Leicester. Yes, that’s right. Not the streets of San Francisco, the rural idyll of Midsomer, or the brooding Scandinoir, but the second city of the East Midlands. Indeed so. A world first, even if she is actually on duty in a lightly fictionalised version of… Birmingham. And it doesn’t get more glam than that.
Detective Inspector Rachita Ray (Parminder Nagra, “also” from Leicester) is a gifted response officer who wins a transfer, at last, to her dream job in the murder squad after winning a bravery award. The chief inspector tells her proudly that, despite being overlooked for so long, she is “exactly what we need right now”. What this turns out to be is an assignment in the sensitively named “Culturally Specific Homicide” (CSH) team. Ironically, this turns out to be something of a hostile environment for her, as they even view someone from the “East Mids” (no one says that in the Midlands) as some sort of visitor from a more advanced civilisation. She has a uniformed subordinate, also of South Asian background, PS Tony Khattri (Maanuv Thiara), but all he does is make snide, culturally loaded remarks about her “agenda”.
