5 Classic Detectives To Replace Poirot On Our TV Screens

3. Alan Grant

Alan GrantCreated by: Scottish novelist and playwright Elizabeth Mackintosh, who wrote the first novel featuring police inspector Alan Grant, The Man in the Queue, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot while caring for her invalid father in 1929. Five more novels featuring Grant followed, this time written using the name by which all her works are now credited: Josephine Tey. The Singing Sands in 1952 was the final part. When Tey died that year her whole estate and royalties from her books were left to the National Trust, so they have a vested interest in getting some screen time for the beautiful landscapes and properties that they own. What's his appeal?: Not to be confused with the dinosaur guy, Inspector Alan Grant is the only character on this list who is an actual police detective. Keen on rational deductions and paying attention to seemingly trivial details, he is noted for his interest in never accepting received wisdom without adequately questioning it. Grant is, however, also peculiarly fond of the less scientific approach of reading people's personalities in their faces (and, on occasion, their handwriting), something that an adaptation to a visual medium could have fun with. Tey is one of the very best writers of the mystery novel's golden age when it comes to constructing a well thought out and consistently engaging narrative in which Grant plays the role of the Scotland Yard detective we'd all like to believe exists, rather than one that's too real. Sidekicks and supporting cast: Grant's stories feature a few recurring characters and this regular supporting cast is one of those things that always makes for more appealing episodic TV. Most notably Grant repeatedly relies on the assistance of Sergeant Williams to do his leg work and evidence gathering. A contented family man, Williams has no great ambitions beyond his current station but clearly hero-worships Grant. Stage actress Marta Hallard will usually make her presence felt at some point in the narrative, increasingly appearing to be Grant's only really close friend as the books go on. More than either Williams or Marta, though, Grant relies heavily on lengthy debates with himself, an ongoing inner dialogue that would be tough but interesting to realise onscreen. Any on screen previous?: The second Grant novel, A Shilling for Candles, was the basis for a Hitchcock film (see the pattern here?), in this case 1937's Young and Innocent. As tended to be the way with Hitch, the final film was a very loose version of Tey's novel. It focused on the classically Hitchcockian character of the wrong suspect on the run from the law and changed the central mystery. Thee murderer turns out to be a completely different character. Not only does the novel's murderer not appear in the film at all, neither does Grant himself. Tey's most adapted novel has been The Franchise Affair, a take on the real life fake kidnapping of Elizabeth Canning, which was filmed in 1951 and has been adapted for TV in the 60s and the 80s. Although Grant appears in the story it is only in a very small cameo and the screen adaptations reflect this. Once again then, Grant's only leading role has been in the 60s Detective show. In fact, in the 1969 episode that adapted The Singing Sands Grant was played by the same actor, John Carson, as had previously played Roger Sheringham. If they only made one: The penultimate Grant mystery, The Daughter of Time, was once voted the greatest mystery novel of all time by the Crime Writers' Association and remains one of the best loved classic mysteries to this day. It is also ripe for a TV adaptation by being curiously more topical now than at the time of writing, given that it's principal suspect was exhumed from a car park earlier this year. Yes, the main character in this unconventional murder investigation is the oft-demonised King Richard III who Grant, bedridden after an accident chasing a criminal, sets out to prove innocent of the murder of the Princes in the Tower after taking a shine to his portrait. This ultimate cold case investigation would strike a chord with the current penchant for archaeological forensic documentaries and its pro-Richard stance is bound to appeal to the surprisingly many admirers who have come out of the woodwork since his body's discovery.
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David Suchet
 
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Loves ghost stories, mysteries and giant ape movies