Paul Bishop was a police detective with the Los Angeles Police Department
for 35 years and was twice selected as LAPD's Detective of the Year. This served him
well in his police procedural and mystery novels,
including his series about female detective Fey Croaker. He’s also written screenplays.
Paul tells me his favourite of his own novels is LIE
CATCHERS: ‘Not only is it the best written, but I poured so
much of my own experiences as an interrogator into its pages.’
Top
LAPD Robbery-Homicide detective ‘Calamity’ Jane Randall (nothing like the real Old
West Calamity Jane, pictured) is partnered with detective Ray Pagan in a search
for two missing children.
Both detectives are scarred by past tragedies. Pagan’s
speciality is interrogation and his lie catching abilities are legendary.
LIE CATCHERS takes the reader
inside the dark and dangerous mind games of those for whom truth is an
obsession.
Male/female
duos battling crime and evil of various kinds have existed in many forms on TV
and film so I wouldn’t dream of trying to list them all. Here’s a few that come
to mind:
In
police movies Clint Eastwood and Tyne Daly were an unlikely pair in THE
ENFORCER (1976)
whilst
the recent ‘modern western’ WIND RIVER (2017) featured Jeremy Renner and Elizabeth Olsen as a government operative and
an FBI agent who combine forces.
And on
TV male-female police teams were depicted in:
the 70s show ‘McMillan
and Wife’ starring
and
the Scandi-Noir police thriller ‘The Bridge.’
Sophia
Heflin and Kim Bodnia in ‘The Bridge’
Man and women private detectives teams included ‘THE THIN MAN’ in film and ‘Hart to Hart’ (with Stefanie Powers and
Robert Wagner) on U.S. TV.
An (accidentally) ground-breaking TV show in this area
was the 60s British ITV series ‘The
Avengers.’ This show initially featured two male agents working in the
world of espionage, one of whom was John Steed (played by Patrick Macnee.) But the other actor left unexpectedly and had
to be hastily replaced. A woman – Honor Blackman – was drafted in at such speed
the scripts couldn’t be changed to accommodate her gender – so she became a
woman who talked and acted like a man, was as intelligent and as skilled in
fighting as her male counterparts, creating a confident, assertive role model
for women all over the world.
Thereafter it became a mark of the series that Macnee
was always partnered by a woman.
For me the series peaked when he was working with Emma
Peel, (Diana Rigg.) I’d argue that this incarnation of ‘The Avengers,’ with its perfectly-cast leads and combination of style,
wit and thrills added up to maybe the greatest TV adventure show ever made.
The rival British TV channel of the time – BBC – attempted its
own version with ‘Adam Adamant Lives!’
where Gerald Harper was partnered by Juliet Harmer. This had a great premise – a Victorian adventurer reincarnated in the ‘swinging
60s’ and assisted by a very ‘swinging 60s' girl - but it only lasted two seasons.
About the same time U.S. TV had a few goes at the same
format. ‘Honey West’ starred Anne Francis
as a female P.I. aided and abetted by John Ericson. Despite a stylish
performance by Ms. Francis the show never took off.
The same can be said of ‘The Girl from UNCLE’ with Stefanie Powers (again) teamed up with
Noel Harrison.
The creator of the hit 90s TV show ‘The X Files,’ Chris Carter, has
acknowledged a debt to ‘The Avengers.’
His show pitches two FBI agents, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson,
into investigations of paranormal activity.
The premise of ‘The
X Files’ is rather like the British TV show ‘Sapphire and Steel’ which ran 1979-1982, with Joanna Lumley (who
was also an ‘Avengers’ girl) and
David McCallum in the lead roles.
Among
many rave reviews for LIE CATCHERS:
‘"Lie
Catchers" is something else. This is a book which goes way beyond the
typical police story. … into psychological aspects rarely used in a
"cop" book… Rarely will you find the kind of insight that Bishop
demonstrates in this truly 5-star book.’
‘Paul Bishop scores a home run with his latest
police procedural… With two new quirky and appealing characters, LAPD Homicide
Detectives "Calamity" Jane Randall and Ray Pagan.’
‘Wonderfully well-crafted police procedural
with two main characters who leap off the page… unique, suspenseful,
surprising, insightful, psychologically complex and wonderfully written.’
‘Written by someone who knows detective/police
work so intimately that they can describe not only the action scenes, but the
inner conflicts, the emotional struggles and the gut-wrenching decisions that
real law enforcement men and women face every day. That is what I loved about
it. I also loved the author's witty, salty writing style.’
https://www.amazon.com/Lie-Catchers-Pagan-Randall-Inquisition-ebook/dp/B07FKM8QN3/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1494684247&sr=1-1
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