Scott and Bailey 1 – Dead to Me (a review)

Can a popular TV series be successfully novelised?
That must have been the question Cath Staincliffe was asking herself when she agreed to take on the task of writing the prequel novel to the first series of Scott and Bailey. And she had less than four months from accepting the challenge to delivering the final manuscript to prove that it could be done.

Without giving anything away, I can reveal that… she pulled it off.

The Story
Written from the point of view of the three main protagonists, Janet Scott, Rachel Bailey and Gill Murray, Dead to Me follows a single case from the grisly discovering of the body to the resolution of the investigation. Naturally there are twists and turns along the way and lots of police procedural detail to keep crime fans satisfied. But there’s so much more.

The Ladies’ Loos
In the true tradition of Cagney and Lacey, no Scott and Bailey tale would be complete without a lot of exploration of the main characters’ home lives and histories.

In Dead to Me we get a glimpse of Murray’s relationship with her son, Sammy and ex-husband Dave, an account of not one but two devastating events from Janet Scott’s past and we discover the circumstances of Rachel Bailey’s childhood that shaped her personality.

The only thing missing was a spot of banter between DCIs Murray and Julie ‘Slap’ Dodson.

If, like me, you’re a fan of Scott and Bailey (this blog is fast turning into the Scott and Bailey appreciation society) or if you like your police procedural to be well written and include a bit of character to accompany the plot, you should really enjoy Dead to Me.

Cath Staincliffe’s second Scott and Bailey novel, Bleed Like Me, is out now in hardback.