I’m hopeless at catching programmes when they’re actually broadcast, so it’s taken me a while to get round to watching the DCI Banks adaptations of Peter Robinson’s books. I like the books, but I encountered exactly the same problem I had with the recent dramatisation of Mark Billingham’s DI Thorne novels. No, not the annoying sidekick, or the maverick cop breaks the rules but always gets his man blah blah blah… the problem I had was overacting. It was bad in Thorne, but even worse in Banks.

Put it this way: if you created a drinking game where you had to down a shot every time DCI Banks made this face:

You’d be very pissed very, very quickly.

That face put me off the programme. I mean it. It’s not just his “I’m angry at a suspect” face. It’s his “I wish I’d had some toast before leaving the house” face, his “I wonder what I’ll have for my tea” face and his “I’m feeling quite chipper today, actually” face.

I don’t get it. Was there a memo that says all TV detectives are allowed two facial expressions, Really Pissed Off and Absolutely Fucking Furious?

A new ebook publisher launches later today: Blasted Heath. I need to declare an interest – one of the founders is a friend of mine who occasionally pays me to write things – but I think what they’re doing is really interesting: they’re picking authors who they believe deserve a bigger profile and marketing the hell out of them. I’ve read two of the launch authors – Ray Banks and Douglas Lindsay – and loved their books, so if BH can maintain that level of quality they’re on to a winner.

I like some of their other ideas too: ebooks are DRM-free and provided in the major file formats (Kindle, ePub and PDF) to ensure maximum compatibility, and if you fancy giving books as a gift there’s a nice wee box set with the books on USB stick inside a presentation case. I know both Blasted Heathens, Kyle and Allan, and they’re definitely on the side of the angels.

Blasted Heath is giving away a different book every day this week, so if you fancy something a bit different you should pop along. Today’s giveaway, Douglas Lindsay’s The End of Days, is a hoot.

I love Tim Dorsey, and I don’t need to finish When Elves Attack to urge everyone to buy it. It’s typical Dorsey, which means it’s superbly deranged Floridian tomfoolery that had me hooting with delight by the second paragraph – which, in this case, is a 93-year-old explaining why she’s gone off sex. If you haven’t read Dorsey and found Coffin Dodgers even remotely funny, you really ought to check out the work of the master.

The most excellent Simon Royle publishes what he calls indieviews, interviews with indie authors. And today it’s my turn to talk bollocks.

I’ve lost track of the number of times a supposedly smart, glass ceiling-shattering female character suddenly becomes a simpering idiot thanks to Captain Exposition. This kind of thing:

Him: We need a laser.

Her: A laser?

Him: Yes, a laser. It stands for light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation, and it was first suggested by Einstein in 1917. In 1958, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow theorized and published papers about a visible laser, an invention that would use infrared and/or visible spectrum light, however, they did not proceed with any research at the time. Today, however, lasers are everywhere, used in a variety of industrial and military applications. You’ll even find them inside home entertainment equipment such as DVD players.

Her: You are so clever! Let’s have sex!

Yes, imagine! And then make it, and give me cash!

Chris at Adarna SF has posted a thoughtful review of Coffin Dodgers, for which I’m very grateful. I think the criticisms are spot-on too.

Despite these hiccups, I really commend Gary Marshall for coming up with a well-written (and well-edited) debut mystery. There are moments in the book that subtly move into the realm of social commentary without having to try so hard. Irreverent tone notwithstanding, it feels much more polished than the usual indie e-books that I’ve come across — definitely worth an afternoon read.

I received an email from Amazon this morning: during a quality check they’ve spotted a major, show-stopping problem with the Kindle edition of Coffin Dodgers, and I must fix it as soon as possible.

The problem?

A single typo.

I was at a book reading by Christopher Brookmyre and Mark Billingham a few weeks ago, and Billingham described some of the angry letters he gets from readers outraged that he uses the odd swear word – but not, it seems, outraged by some of the absolutely appalling things his villains do. It seems to be quite common in crime fiction: just last night, Allan Guthrie got a one-star review from somebody so outraged by the (minor) swearing in one of his books that they couldn’t continue.

I’ve said elsewhere that writers should consider whether swearing is necessary if it isn’t relevant or appropriate – if Mr Guthrie wrote gentle Victorian-era whodunnits and used language such as “it was Professor fucking Plum, with a fucking lead pipe, in the fucking study, the fucking sneaky fucking fucker” then that might be considered somewhat gratuitous – but he writes contemporary crime fiction and police procedurals.

You may not be aware of this, but policemen and women sometimes swear. Criminals too.

Ray Banks, aka The Saturday Boy, has an opinion about all of this.

Swearing is a vital part of human life, regardless of culture, and to indulge in vicarious murder as entertainment whilst eschewing the saltier language is nothing short of hypocrisy.

I read a lot of crime fiction, and I’ve lost track of the various horrible things crime writers describe – and by crime writers I mean mainstream, your-mum-reads-them crime writers, many of whom revel in detailed descriptions of the most terrible acts. If you can stomach that but not the word “fuck” then there’s something seriously fucking wrong with you.