Dalziel and Pascoe (TV Series) A Killing Kindness (1997) User Reviews

Slow start, but excellent when it gets going.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 17 December 2020]

I thought this one was a little bit of a slow burner, it took a little time to get going, but when it opens up, it really does become a very watchable, character driven episode.

Andy was of course a Dinosaur, and probably did harbour some outdated ideas, but such was the character, he played the part superbly well.

It gains momentum, and has a very dramatic climax, I may be wrong, but was this the first serial killer the pair had encountered?

I did enjoy the scenes with the fortune teller, and the premonitions, that added to the story.

Julie Graham is excellent, and such a dish back here with that short hair, good scenes between Dalziel and Ms. Pritchard.

A Killing Kindness

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 30 November 2023]

Teenager Brenda Sorby works in a bank and is engaged to be married. She planned to see her fiance at a local travelling fairground. Brenda ended up dead.

The latest victim of the Yorkshire Choker. A fledgling serial killer who rings the local newspaper and quotes lines from Hamlet.

The next victim is a young gypsy woman, her mother tells fortunes. It happened at the fair which at the time was crawling with police.

With the national press sniffing a big story. Andy Dalziel finds himself under pressure from his boss as well as gypsy rights lawyer Adi Pritchard.

Dalziel suspects gypsy Dave Lee and cares little about the rights of travellers. Peter Pascoe thinks it might be local teacher Mark Wildgoose. He is putting in a Shakespeare play.

It was one of these adaptations that was heavily influenced by Colin Dexter. He set crosswords and wrote the Inspector Morse books. His crime mysteries had clues very much like a crossword which the television adaptation of the Morse stories tried to replicate.

This is a roundabout way of saying the performer who turns out to be the killer. Had an expertise on Shakespeare, both performing, directing and teaching it.

Otherwise the less obvious suspect did it!