Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
CRIME & ALL THAT JAZZ
The son of an ace pilot is targeted by kidnappers – but fearless sleuth Frankie Drake is on the case, in an action-packed new series set in the roaring Twenties
Leaping off a speeding motorbike, the hero knocks a criminal to the ground and clambers on to a moving plane just in time to save the innocent trapped inside. It’s not a scene from an Indiana Jones film – but it’s just as thrilling. And the hero is actually a heroine – Frankie Drake, the flame-haired detective at the centre of a fast-paced new crime series set amid the speakeasies, flappers and jazz of the 1920s.
The 11-part Frankie Drake Mysteries has shootouts, explosions and plenty of Gatsby- era glamour, and though it all takes place in Toronto, the first episode features a face from closer to home – former Lewis actor Laurence Fox.
Laurence plays Greg Miller, a mechanic working for an ace pilot named Phillip Anderson, whose infant son Charlie is snatched by a kidnapper, who attempts to flee in a biplane. Luckily, Frankie Drake is on the scene to foil the escape but she finds Phillip reluctant to track down the criminal. The mystery deepens when Charlie later vanishes with his nanny.
‘What looks like an attempt to extort money becomes a lot more complicated,’ says Lauren Lee Smith, the Canadian actress who plays Frankie. ‘Phillip Anderson is holding secrets. There are lots of twists, turns – and fatalities.’
Key to the case, which has echoes of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, is Laurence’s character Greg. There’s an attraction between him and Frankie, but is he a baddie? ‘That would be telling,’ laughs Laurence. ‘He’s enigmatic and mysterious and you’re not sure which side he’s on. But there’s quite a bit of flirting. He finds Frankie attractive and probably wants to take matters further.’
He’s not the only man bewitched by Frankie, creator of the only all-female detective agency in Toronto, an organisation she runs with business partner Trudy Clarke. We also see her becoming more than friendly with her boxing instructor Moses Page, their post-sparring romance only interrupted by a knock on the door.
‘She lives life to the full, she rides her motorbike at top speed having narrowly escaped death more than once during the First World War, when she was a spy,’ explains Lauren, best known in the UK for her role as Riley Adams in US crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.
‘Frankie takes advantage of the new freedoms for women. The series is set in 1921, when most women in Canada have the vote. Society is still dominated by men but it works for her – clients tell her things they may not tell a male detective and she gets into places a man might not.’
Frankie also benefits from friendships
with women such as Mary Shaw, Toronto’s Morality Officer, charged with monitoring women’s behaviour, and Wendy Quon, who hears all the gossip as the owner of a speakeasy.
And she’s never far from the action. Lauren thinks Frankie’s bravery will appeal – even if it gave her nightmares. ‘When she tackles the kidnapper and brings the plane to a halt, I was fine with that. But I struggled with the motorbike! I went on a course to learn how to control this vintage machine, and it was terrifying. After the first day, I went home and cried. But one of the writers on Frankie Drake said the character is a female Indiana Jones and I brought that to mind when I needed to find that little bit more courage.’ Frankie Drake Mysteries, Tuesday, 9pm, Alibi channel (on Sky and Virgin)