There’s no new evidence to justify a review of the 25-year-old unsolved murder of young barmaid Rosie Duff, but “some woke millennial’s found a microphone” – AKA started a podcast – and so the top brass of Fife’s finest must bestir themselves. When they put together a team to re-examine the case, the optics demand a young female lead detective. Enter Karen Pirie, the eponymous heroine of the latest adaptation of one of veteran crime writer Val McDermid’s bestsellers, The Distant Echo.
It’s such a relief when a crime drama isn’t afraid to be funny. The vast majority of them fall into the EastEnders trap of forbidding characters too immersed in dark emotional/situational/caff-based turmoil to react with humour. You know, like humans instinctively, definingly do. It’s very odd and – in every sense – makes for an incredibly and unnecessarily dreary time for us all.
