Ian Thomson ’ s Northern Trilogy (beginning with The Northern Elements and Northern Flames ) weaves history, nostalgia, and autobiography into highly engaging and thought-provoking tales. Spirit of the North is no different in that, but it is different. The plot looks at three episodes of spiritualism, two relatively harmless, and one with serious consequences. While the first two are reminiscent of Agatha Christiesque table-turning, the third involves murder. This is the one that leads to a serious investigation by Tom Catlow with his childhood friend, Will Melling, playing Watson. Readers met these two mischievous friends in The Northern Elements . Tom is a retired police Senior Scientific Officer (Forensics) and Will a former sports journalist. Now to fill their time, Tom and Will investigate another very old case while continuing their friendship with teasing and banter. The third main character is long-dead. Cornelius Pickup, was a successful businessman, kind employer, a
Having watched the last episode of The Capture, I was looking for something equally intriguing but not as frightening. I decided to re-watch the old episodes of Jonathan Creek . Like everyone else, I have my favourite episodes and they are enhanced by the actors and settings. The series had the ability to draw one in and make everything seem possible, if unlikely. However, the re-watching exercise only reinforced my view that Maddy Magellan was possibly the most irritating character who has been on television in more than a generation. I can throw the usual abuse at her, but her most egregious sins are that she is irredeemably selfish and, throughout the series, she never learns anything . She appears in 18 episodes and is as stupid in the last as she was in the first. Her selfishness not infrequently crosses the line from being mildly amusing to downright mean. For all of her emancipated liberalism, she is an objectionable human being (I leave it others to decide whether that is ca