I have a criticism of Linda La Plante. I'm reading one of her DI Anna Travis series ATM.
It is the second book I've read of this very talented author. She has really sucked me in with the fast paced, entertaining writing style. I'm quite blown out how good she is!
However, where LLP differs from the likes of the great Robert Galbraith, who does not want to write romantic novels, but adheres strictly to the crime genre writing as RG, I feel irritated that DI Anna Travis is a loner socially outside work - and - at work.
She is totally besotted with DCI James Langton, played very well by Ciaran Hinds in the screen series. Langton is basically an arrogant, callous, obnoxious, rude, bullying, overbearing, egotistical, selfish boss, who is also Travis' romantic partner. The traits of the DCI are not admirable - bosses with traits like this, I've clashed with in the workplace and have activated the union over their various behaviours and actions.
Travis doesn't appear to mentor younger, or less experienced detectives under her command. She has no concept of team building. She just seems irritated by less talented or experienced detectives. Langton is irritated by them too - just abuses or puts them down, rather than mentors them. With the sequel to this book, Deadly Intent, thankfully Langton is less involved in the plot.
I've seen Langton described as 'charismatic' in a review. I think he is amongst the most irritating protagonists in a fiction book I've read for a decade! There is a strange phenomenon where some pleasant women are attracted to arrogant men!
Another author, Michael Robotham, a talented Aussie who never writes about Aus, has one of his protagonists, Joe O'Loughlin, who also adulates his former wife, as a trophy wife, so much it is nauseating.
Plus Joe's teenage daughter seems to get entwined in every climax of the Joe OL series - needlessly. Having said this, in other books I've read by MR, I much prefer his other main characters to Joe O, played by Aiden Turner in the screen series. MR is a high quality crime author.
Contrast to Robert Galbraith - who always keeps her protagonists, Strike's and Robin's attraction to each other, from developing. RG does it in a clever, teasing way. The paramount focus is on their private detective agency and solving the occasional big crime.
Also , PI Vic Warsawski, Sarah Peretsky's main character, and PI Kinsey Millhone, Sue Grafton's protagonist, are not at all dependent on domineering male characters.
Ditto Gabrielle Lord, who also has strong, independent female investigators.
Moreover, Michael Connelly's Detective Rene Ballard is not defined by a fawning relationship with a male.
One can add Chris Hammer's Detective Nell Buchanan, a very good martial artist, to the list of independent female leads.
