A DEEP DIVE
Female-led crime shows are having a moment on screen thanks to their nuanced and complex characters, writes Siobhan Duck
MISS Marple had to wait nearly 30 years before she made the leap from the pages of Agatha Christie’s novels to the screen. And it would be decades more again before seeing women solve crimes for a living rather than as a hobby, like the meddling Marple, became commonplace.
Vigil, the latest crime drama from the team behind celebrated British police procedural series Line Of Duty, puts women front and centre in the quest to solve a murder at sea. Suranne Jones ( Gentleman Jack) plays
Amy Silva, a talented detective charged with investigating a death on board a British submarine while her partner – in life and at work – Kirsten ( played by Game Of Thrones’ Rose Leslie) does the legwork on land.
Award-winning suspense writer Gabriel Bergmoser is unsurprised to see so many of today’s most talked-about crime dramas with women as their central figures. Shows like Mare Of Easttown (Binge), The Fall (SBS On Demand) and Unbelievable (Netflix) have all received critical acclaim and feature police investigations spearheaded by women.
“I think it speaks to an overall cultural shift but also to the fact that there are stories that can be told with women that can’t with men, or at least told in different ways,” he says. “At a time when it sometimes feels like we’re running out of new stories, that’s a really powerful thing.”
Bergmoser says Vigil will appeal to viewers not just for its strong female characters, but also because it’s a fresh spin on a well-trodden genre. “A highstakes, claustrophobic mystery that takes a troubled detective into the heart of darkness that is a submarine full of secrets,” he says. “DCI Amy Silva is a great addition to the pantheon of scarred-yet-brilliant female detectives up against seemingly impossible odds.”
Bergmoser says there’s something both “refreshing and terrifying in seeing the kind of character we’re used to being in charge thrust into a world where the rules are both incomprehensible and, apparently, designed to work against her at every turn. “The best detectives combine being believable with being aspirational,” he says. “Having real, human flaws but also skills, tenacity, drive and intelligence that most of us can only dream of.”
Like any seasoned TV crime fan, Bergmoser has his favourite detectives.
“There are so many brilliant options, from Dana Scully ( The X-Files) to Vera Stanhope ( Vera)
and Jane Tennison ( Prime Suspect) or Jessica Fletcher ( Murder, She Wrote),” he says.
“For my money, the greatest is Happy Valley’s Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) – technically not a detective, although she does plenty of detecting, but one of the best, most complex and engaging television cops of all time.
If not the best.”
VIGIL STREAMING FROM TOMORROW ON BINGE
TheInheritance by Gabriel Bergmoser (HarperCollins, $29.99) is out now