Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

A thrilling read, with a gripping storyline, you wont want to put this down. Lynda La Plante delivers consistently good reads, and does not disappoint with this one.

Really enjoyable. Jane Tennison is such a strong character and it is great to see her early in her career. She deals with her misogynistic colleges with great aplomb.

Lynda La Plante can do no wrong in my view, she is such an inspirational fabulous author. The Dirty Dozen does not disappoint. The 5th in the Tennyson series of the early years of Jane Tennison’s career, as she joins the Flying Squad. Recommended reading. Brilliant as always.

The Tennison series has been really great, though I think this might be the weakest instalment. Still, I will definitely continue reading Lynda's books. She's a fabulous writer.

Love this series so much, and this title doesn't disappoint. Expect a fast paced retro read. Jane is such a great character and I look forward to reading the next installment.

Lynda La Plante never fails to supply the goods and this book is no different.
We again meet up with the go getting Jane Tennison in her young detective days.
The story follows the winning format we have seen before and will see again but that doesn’t matter because it works. We see her fall in love with someone unsuitable, get in trouble (many time’s) and put her foot in it and annoy the “top brass” frequently.
There are no downsides to this book, it’s a fantastic read, delivers a delve back in history this time looking at the IRA and just how difficult things were for a female in a very male dominated career.
Can’t wait to read the next instalment.

This is the fifth book in the series featuring DS Jane Tennison. I did find this book a bit slow to begin with but became hooked as the story progressed. The book opens with Jane, who is now a Detective Sergeant, being posted to the Flying Squad. They deal with armed robberies etc which could be a dangerous job for a woman. The squad are known as ‘The Dirty Dozen’ and they do not welcome a female on their team and make sure that Jane is aware of it. This makes Jane more determined to prove herself. On her first day they are called out to a vicious armed robbery on a Securicor van, leaving a police officer shot and injured. Using her own initiative Jane finds a witness who overheard the robbers plotting the robbery and also indications that they were planning another one. The team questions the reliability of the witness, so Jane has to use all her detective skills and determination to solve the case and earn the respect of the team. I did find that there was a lot of detailed description of police procedures and not a lot of Jane’s private life, but I still enjoyed the book and look forward to more of Jane’s story in the next book.
Thanks to Netgalley and Zaffre books for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is the 5th book in the Jane Tennison series. While it helps to have read the previous installments, it does work as a standalone novel too. Jane is the first female officer to join the flying squad in the 1980s and is quickly thrown in to an investigation while juggling office politics on the side.

WoW.......This is the fifth book in this brilliant series by Lynda La Plante and it was a corker of a book.
The Dirty Dozen by Lynda La Plante I have loved reading about the character Jane Tennison and a big fan of the Prime Suspect so I was more that happy to read this book. This book is set in the 1980's and DS Jane Tennison is the first female detective to be posted to the London's met renowned Flying Squad. This was commonly known as the "Sweeney" and is based at the Rigg Approach in East London. They are known for investigating crimes for armed robberies, etc.

I love DS Jane Tennison character and her character is believable.

Looking forward reading the next book in this brilliant series.

Highly recommend all of Lynda's books.

Thank you NetGalley, Bonnier Zaffre and Linda La Plante for my ARC.......I loved it.

I haven't read Lynda La Plante before and judging from the rest of the reviews I am in a minority there. I have to be honest, I think there is a need to read more of her books to fully understand her characters first before picking up this one, but I didn't hate it. I found it interesting and I enjoyed the mystery elements. I will definitely read more from La Plante in the future.

I'm a big fan of Lynda La Plante and Jane Tennison is an excellent character. Love this book, set in the 80's early on in Tennison's career. Highly recommend!

Wow

I have always loved Lynda la plante and my favourite series by her is the Jane tennison series

I never bore of these

I was so glad to see that tennison had been brought back and with another great storyline

I hope there is another instalment

This is the fifth book in the Jane Tennison series and set in 1980. Jane has joined The Flying Squad and is catapulted into a robbery investigation on her first day. Jane can be a bit impulsive in her role and as the first female officer, she quickly gets embroiled in office politics. This is another very good read which I would recommend. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Jane Tennison joins the Sweeney...

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this ARC.

This is the fifth in the early Jane series and having read the previous four, this may not be the best, but it's still a good read.

Set in the early 1980s with the stereotypical attitudes towards women, the story follows Jane's struggle to be acknowledged and accepted by her colleagues and superiors as the new token female detective on the flying squad.

The main plot stems from an armed robbery of a security van, your classic villains with shooters doing a blag type scenario.

I enjoyed the book and am looking forward to more of Jane's back story in future.

# The Dirty Dozen # Netgally
Wow wow wow. I have yet to find a book by Lynda LaPlant yet, that I actually do not like. It's absolutely impossible. She is one of the best female writers we have ever had. Her Jane Tennison series are second to none. This one going back. To a time when she put in charge. It's really shows you what was a man's world back then, with no respect. No one thinks she's actually capable. Yet if she gives her team a order they pay no attention to what she says. They all look at a lower rank detective for guidence. If he says do it they do. When he tells a colleague what to do they automatically do it. Until challenged one day by jane. She has to Hearn their respect. Not a easy thing to do. Until one day she comes across some information 5hat they have been looking for a long time so when Jane gets it.A grudging respect as been well earned. Some of the offices. Start to to work with her instead against her. Another knockout book by Linda LaPlant

An amazing read. I Could not put it down. Really draws you in and keeps you hooked from start to finish. Looking forward to more from this amazing author!! Highly recommended book.

Surprisingly this is the first book that I have read by this author although I know her TV series very well. Jane Tennison is 6 years into her career, at this point she is a DS who has just been successful in her application to join The Flying Squad. She is the very first woman to be admitted to this men-only domain and she knows she has her work cut out to gain respect and loyalty from the team. I really enjoyed this book, it's very well written and moves along at a fast pace.

This is the 5th in the series of books charting the career of Prime Suspect's Jane Tennison when she first joined the police. It is April 1980 and Jane has now served 6 years, the last one of which as a Detective Sergeant, no mean feat for a woman in the Met. What is really surprising is that she is the first female office to have just been posted to the Flying Squad, commonly known as "The Sweeney", a section of officers who deal with armed robberies on banks, cash in transit and other business premises. Since a conviction is hard to obtain before or after a robbery, they very often have to catch the criminals in the act. That could be a very dangerous job for a woman and a good reason for not wanting one on the team. Based at Rigg Approach in East London, she believes she got the job on merit until she is firmly put in her place by being told she is part of an experiment to see if a female office would have a calming influence on a group of male detectives who like to dub themselves "The Dirty Dozen" after the film. Despite this and the fact that her presence is clearly unwelcome, she is determined to prove herself and take no flack from the men. During her first day in the new job there is a vicious armed hold up on a Securicor van and she quickly has to adapt and become involved in the investigation, although it annoys her that she is consigned to forensics and office work. When she later gets assigned to what seems a pointless lead, she quickly uncovers a witness to the gang's planning of the raid and possibly a massive future plot too. Will her colleagues take her fears seriously and or will she end up completely out of her depth?
The story itself is set over a very short period of time and the investigation is intensive, although it occasionally gets a bit bogged down in procedure, and really only centres on the main story line with a tiny bit of Jane's home life thrown in for good measure. Set in 1980 in the Metropolitan police, any woman officer would have a tough time of it, not least in the Flying Squad where it's all old school macho stuff but for them to behave in any other way would be totally unrealistic. The author does not shy away from this or the less than "pc" way that things were done back then, and it makes a nice change to have a story set in a time where the emphasis is more on intelligence and fact finding than simply forensics. I like the progression of Jane's character through these early stories. Even in her youth she is starting to show dogged detectives skills mixed with the same impulsiveness and determination to do things her way without always thinking and upsetting the "brass". The characters are well drawn and some like Paul Lawrence and Stanley from earlier books make a reappearance. This is a well thought out story, very much a "will they/won't they catch the bad guys" kind of plot. It's possibly not the most exciting story in this series so far but takes us one step further along Jane's career, and leaves threads like the Countryman enquiry open to maybe continued in future books. A great series and worth reading in order to get the best from them. 4.5*

First of all I have a confession to make I have never read any of Lynda La Plante’s books, although after reading this one i’m not sure why. I have watched many of the dramas that have been written by the author such as Widows and the original series with Helen Mirren in as Jane Tennison, Prime Suspect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it starts back in 1976, which for me brought back a lot of memories , as I was fourteen at the time, so can relate to some of the things mentioned in the book. The cars that were around then, the lack of technology as we now know it, having to find a phone box because no mobile phones were around, and many other things we now take for granted.

This is the fifth book in the series of the earlier days of Jane Tennison. It’s easily readable as a stand-alone book although there are a couple of references to things which may have been in previous books, but that certainly doesn’t distract from this story. Jane has been assigned to the Flying Squad otherwise known as the Sweeney. She believes this is a promotion, she is now a Detective Sergeant, and no other woman has ever been an officer with the Flying Squad, however, it appears that she is mistaken and all this is is an experiment, possibly at the time it would have been showing that women could also rise in the ranks of the police force, they just had to work twice as hard to get there.

In the opening scenes of the book Jane is thrown in at the deep end, before she can even meet Detective Inspector Murphy the officer she is to report to, she is literally dragged out on a job that is taking place, although half of the officers didn’t seem to be expecting her. All the other officers are armed except for one who is only the driver. When they reach where the robbery is taking place Jane is told to stay where she is and keep her head down. There is quite a bit of action taking place throughout these opening scenes setting the story up for the rest of the book. The robbers manage to escape capture so the rest of the book is finding out who they were and what job they have planned next knowing that they didn’t get a very big pay off from this job.

Jane now has to face misogyny as it’s clear from the start the men don’t want her there, or the majority of them that is, calling her treacle meaning cockney slang treacle tart-sweetheart, plonks-what female officers were called. It’s clear they believe it’s no place for a woman. But this doesn’t phase Jane at all she just works harder. Detective Inspector Murphy is determined Jane will step out of line, and when she does he is determined that that will be the end of the experiment. There is one other female who works in the department Katie but she is an admin worker, she doesn’t like Jane from the start and does everything she can to help DI Murphy to get rid of her, even pretending she supports Jane and feeding false information.

The writing is well plotted, the characters are all great, well rounded each with their own nickname, you either love them or hate them, obviously the criminals aren’t meant to be liked. Some of the officers show a different side later in the book as Jane starts to prove herself capable. But whether she manages to stay in the Flying Squad I don’t know. I guess what happens next will be in the next book.

Thank you to netgalley and Zaffre for an ARC of this book all views and opinions are my own and honest and unbiased.