A review by thearieslibrary
Tennison by Lynda La Plante

4.0

Jane Tennison is a probationer at Hackney. At first she struggles to deal with the shocking situations she faces where she feels out of depth in a male-dominated, chauvinistic environment. Then she’s given her first murder case…

This is the first book in the Jane Tennison series, which I really enjoyed and cannot wait to see how this series progresses! I listened to this book and it was definitely lengthy (over 17 hours) and had long chapters, which I’m not used to! Nevertheless, the audiobook was excellently narrated especially with how many characters Julie Teal voiced, which made me immersed in the story.

The characters were an interesting bunch (as expected in the police in the 1970’s) where I wasn’t the biggest fan of some (I’m looking at you, Harris👀) and others I loved (like Jane and Kath). I loved seeing the character’s development throughout this book with me even starting to like some of the characters I wasn’t a fan of before. I loved how Lynda showed the struggles that Kath and Jane had to endure in a male-dominated field and the different ways that they decided to deal with the treatment they received from male officers.

This is definitely a slow burner as it allows you to get to grips with the characters and the murder case and then the pace increases. That ending?! I had to stare at a wall after I finished this book because I wasn’t expecting how heart wrenching and sad it was going to be, next time I will have my tissues ready! Something to note is the dated language used throughout, including racism, ableist language, derogatory slurs and language.

⚠️ CWs: death, cursing, alcohol use, derogatory language, murder, physical assault, sexual harassment, homophobic slur, racism, sexism, physical assault, police corruption; mentions needles, rape, vomiting, drug use, prostitution, ableist language, domestic abuse, drunk driving, cheating ⚠️