A thrilling and heartfelt story; draws you in very quickly and doesn't let go. Excellent character development. Highly recommended!

I'm really loving this series in which we follow Jane Tennison's early days in the police, all of which can be read standalone but, to get the best from it, I would recommend starting at book one and reading in order.
In this book, we reach the 80s and Jane has been posted to the Flying Squad. An elite squad who concentrate on preventing and investigating armed robberies. Initially thinking her promotion and placement are on merit, she is shocked to discover the truth of her transfer. Battling sexism and jealousy she takes her tenacity, determination and strength and combines this with her attention to detail and finely honed investigative skills to try and make it in a man's world. Chipping away at the prejudices, can she make herself heard when she discovers something that could prove key to stopping the next massive robbery?
I loved the way that the author threw Jane into the wolf pack on her very first day on the job. I also loved the way that she reacted to this pressure and indeed to pretty much everything subsequently thrown at her throughout her time with the Squad. I also loved the trip down memory lane that was the 80s; my favourite decade. So I was pretty much sold on the idea of the book right from the off. Sadly, this also meant that I really found it hard to put down and it meant that life just had to wait until I had finished it as I was very reluctant to stop reading for anything other than vital stuff.
It's also really refreshing to read a detective novel set in a time before information technology took off. Having to "run to a phone booth" to call in, relying on memory and information retained rather than being able to just "look stuff up on the internet" was indeed a breath of fresh air.
Jane is a pioneer for sure - this has been the case throughout the series where she has been (one of) the first women to do quite a few things in the force. But she has no fear and believes in herself. Yes she's still naive about quite a few things and does mess up on occasion but that only proves she's human and makes her easier to connect to / identify with. I grew up in a time where women were still the minority in the career I wanted to pursue (engineering) so I know a little about what she had to face and can empathise with how much harder she felt she had to work just to break even with the "boys". That said, I think her ride was depicted as easier than it would have been in reality as she didn't appear to suffer from as much as I would have imagined. That said, if she had, I think it would have been too distracting to what turned out to be a very interesting case the Squad were tasked with investigating.
All in all, a cracking addition to an already impressive series. I can't wait to see what the author has in store for Jane in the next book. My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an open and honest review.

The Dirty Dozen is the fifth book in the young Jane Tennison series.

Jane`s years of hard work had paid off when she joined the elite Flying Squad (The Sweeney) who dealt with armed robberies. Jane`s first day on the job was a true baptism of fire when a Securicor van was robbed on a busy high street. An off duty policeman tried to stop the robbery but he was shot in the stomach.

Jane was annoyed as she treated as probationary and had to help the forensics officer. After meeting Her new boss DCI Murray, Jane was angry when she found out she was given the job as an experiment. After several officers were arrested for corruption the MET decided a female would be a calming influence.

A couple of days later a lady went to the police to say she had heard somebody in a cafe planning a robbery. Jane found out that Emma had gone to the station on behalf of her sister. Rachel had been left death after a road accident, however she was able to lip read.

Jane persuaded her boss to allow her to go undercover as a waitress to see if the robbers would appear again. Jane finds herself invited to the wedding of one of the suspects daughters. Will.Jane find herself out of her depth?

I like this series about the young Jane Tennison. It was nice that reoccurring characters D'S Stanley from the Dip Squad and D'S Paul Lawrence were in this book.

Jane is so headstrong and sometimes acts before thinking. I can't help but wonder if she would of become such a high ranking officer in real life.I think Rachel and Emma were interesting characters and I wished they had played a bigger part. I also would of been interested if the Countryman enquiry had been expanded in the storyline.

I thoroughly recommend this series. I can't wait to see what happens next for Jane.

I love the Jane tennison series,but I must say I struggled with this one. It didn't really give anything different to Jane's story of progressing through the ranks, it was the usual male chauvinist copper doesn't like female copper ,won't take any orders, female comes out on top as usual. The previous email ones have even better written in music opinion, not sure I will be in a hurry to read anymore if there are any.

Jane Tennison returns in Lynda La Plante's The Dirty Dozen which is another book in the prequel series.

This time it is 1980 and Tennison is the first woman to join the Met's Flying Squad which allow the author to use the prejudices of the time within the story.

The book itself is well paced and very readable and hopefully there will be more to come from this particular series.

Highly recommended

I would like to thank Netgalley and Bonnier Zaffre for an advance copy of The Dirty Dozen, the fifth novel to feature the early career of Jane Tennison at the Met.

It’s now 1980 and DS Jane Tennison has just become the first woman to join the renowned Flying Squad on merit she believes until she’s rather brutally told that it’s an experiment and she fitted the bill. She’s hardly in the door, literally, when she’s caught up in the investigation of a violent armed robbery. Determined to prove her worth her tenacious investigating turns up several leads, including possible future robberies.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Dirty Dozen which is a well plotted, absorbing read with an interesting, much as it pains me to say it, historical setting. Despite the Flying Squad, or as it more commonly known, Sweeney setting and its members being referred to as the eponymous Dirty Dozen it is not an overly violent novel and the squad seem more interested in detection and surveillance than using violence. It makes for a good read but I’m not sure how historically accurate it is. There is never a dull moment as Jane turns up lead after lead, pushing the narrative forward and holding the reader’s attention. It is interesting to watch it play out without the modern communications (phone boxes? I’m not even sure I remember how they worked) and forensics we are so used to.

It is different to see Jane Tennison as a young woman. She is not the objective, hard headed detective she becomes in Prime Suspect. In this fifth novel she is not a raw recruit but she can be impetuous and has the arrogance of youth that makes her think she knows best. Both lead to missteps, which, more maturely, she learns from and her progress is fascinating. I like the idea of putting her in the male dominated, macho and misogynistic atmosphere of the Sweeney, a microcosm of the prevailing attitude of the police force as a whole. I actually think that she got off rather easily with the team, on the whole, accepting her quickly without much hazing.

The Dirty Dozen is a good read which I have no hesitation in recommending.

A good story that flows well.
I did find it a bit boring at times but on the whole it was well written
Descriptions of characters could be more in depth as I felt they were superficial

Ponderous

I have massive respect for Lynda La Plante and believe that Prime Suspect was one of the best crime series on TV for many years. This is the first book of hers that I have read, so I was thoroughly looking forward to getting stuck into something of similar quality. However, in all conscience, I cannot recommend it and struggled to give it even 3 stars.

This is the fifth book in the Jane Tennison series. It's the early 80s, and DS Tennison has been parachuted into the Flying Squad (the Sweeney) at the token woman. The Sweeney tackle gun crime and armed robberies on their mainly East End patch and "the dirty dozen" do not take well to having a woman foist upon them.

It was immediately apparent that this was going to be more a story of the little lady making good and battling against misogyny rather than anything to do with solving crime, and so it transpired. Unfortunately, it got bogged down and felt very laboured. In the end, it was boring and predictable. The writing felt clunky, and it was difficult to relate to any of the characters.

All the stereotypes are there (much like the original Dirty Dozen film. The solitary black guy, the bosses with their own agendas, the jealous office administrator who was the only other woman. There was no tension in the plot, and the crime-solving was most definitely a subplot and subservient to the office politics. No doubt there will be a sixth Jane Tennison crime thriller but I, for one, will not be reading it.

mr zorg

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to read.

A comfortable read. la Plante has a style of writing that’s easy to fall into that makes it easy for her to become a favourite author.
As always her characters and plot keep the author on the endge of their seat and fully engaged until the very last page.

It is now 1980 and Jane Tennison has become the first female to be posted to the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad, colloquially known as ‘The Sweeney’. Thrown straight into investigating an armed robbery, Jane is proud of her achievements until she realises that her transfer is part of an experiment to try to tame the male dominated team known as ‘The Dirty Dozen’. Determined to prove her worth, Jane learns that a gang is about to carry out a multi-million pound raid, the only problem being she doesn’t know who they are and where or when the raid will take place…

The more this series progresses, the more we see Jane Tennison moving towards the no-nonsense detective we know and love from the Prime Suspect series. Now part of the famous Flying Squad, she is, again, having to fight the rampant sexism that exists in the police force, discovering that her posting is, in fact, part of an experiment. You can feel Jane’s frustration, a detective who deserves to be where she is due to her competence, yet it is still her sex that is dictating her role.

In The Dirty Dozen, we see the Flying Squad investigating an armed robbery but Jane is sidelined, tasked with the jobs that her boss deems unimportant. Fortunately for Jane, she grabs the challenge with both hands and, working alongside a fellow officer, Dabs, begins to uncover information that opens up the case. When she is sent on a wild goose chase to interview a potential witness, the whole investigation takes a turn after Jane realises that this information is gold dust. It was good to see Tennison trusting her instincts, refusing to give up even when her superiors displayed a lack of interest – this was definitely the tenacious Prime Suspect detective emerging.

Due to its 1980 setting, there is definitely an Ashes to Ashes feel to The Dirty Dozen and I could imagine Gene Hunt ”firing up the Quattro’ at any moment! Some of the vocabulary used in the book, especially to describe people, made me wince, but this is of the time and made me feel glad that this terminology is no longer acceptable. I always enjoy the references to real-life incidents in this series, in this case the Iranian Embassy siege, as it helps to place the book firmly in a particular time.

I am still absolutely loving this series and my only concern is that we are nearing the time when DCI Tennison will cross paths with George Marlow, taking us to the start of the Prime Suspect series. This is a series that I hope will continue for a while yet!

I read ‘Murder Mile’ a short time ago and found it a brilliant read. This is the next stage for Jane Tennison as she is sent to the Flying Squad, known as ‘The Sweeney’. She is the first woman to be part of this ‘elite’ group and she is made aware of this at every stage. The sexist comments are plentiful but her ability is not in doubt despite some of the squad trying to out-do her. Her fight to be treated as an equal shines through.

Transported back to April 1980 with clear concise detail and all the police procedures brilliantly developed. Her first day sees her involved with finding four men who robbed a bank and subsequently set fire to the get away car.

The whole squad know that the ruthless gangs in that part of London view the police as better dead than alive and Jane finds herself with information from a reliable source that a robbery is about to take place. Can she find out where and when?

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

If you are a fan of ‘Prime Suspect’ then this is a must read. Brilliantly crafted and highly recommended.

Although I've watched the televised version of Ms La Plante's publications, this is the first book of hers I've read.
Extremely good read and no hesitation in recommending it to others.
Certainly won't be the last one I'll read.

I don't know - maybe it's just me but this book didn't resonate. I had been hoping for better and here's why I was disappointed; the writing was not up to the usual standard of La Plante - at times it felt as if I was reading a high school essay as it had too much repitition eg - an interview or discussion between characters was often repeated to another character...hey up...I've read this in the previous few pages. Too much emphasis on the police procedure and not enough in fleshing out the characters. I know La Plante was trying to sketch Tennison's beginnings in the Force and at times the dialogue was clunky and not representative of the era. Then the side-bar with her brother-in-law. Sorry folks, this offering from LLP just didn't cut the mustard for me and I really struggled to finish it. Thanks go the publisher, the author and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. Just so disappointed as usually LLP is ace at her chosen profession but this one IMHO was a dud!

It’s 1976 and Jane Tennison is posted to the Flying Squad, the first ever female in post, to say this causes a stir with this bunch of misogynists is an understatement. A bank robbery has occurred and Jane is sidelined to minor tasks as the team investigates, but slowly she’s shows she’s no fool and uncovers many clues and witnesses.
As Jane proves herself we come to know more of the team, though it must be said no great depths of characters are revealed surface information only.
A good story which flows fairly well, there is one side story apart from the robbery investigation otherwise not much more. Dare I say it I found this Jane a tad boring, she needs to lighten up a bit.
My thanks to net galley and publisher for the opportunity to review this book honestly.

The Dirty Dozen
Lynda La Plante
Publishers: Zaffre

Interesting well researched book detailing the early career of Jane Tennison. A bit heavy on detail of police procedure at times but a gripping story nonetheless.
3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
I’d like to thank the author, publisher and netgalley for an advance digital copy in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Jane Tennison, is the first detective to be posted into the flying squad (Sweeney) Based in east London.

Her new colleagues are not very impressed and feel she is not up to the job, her new boss looks on her as a waste of space has no time for her and as her post is experimental is unhappy about the situation.

Jane knows she has to prove herself, needs to find a way to do it and quickly.

Katie the office secretary feels threatened by Jane as she has been the only female among the men (The dirty dozen) in the office for a long time, it is her domain. She hates Jane on sight and is determined to make her life a misery.

A job is on, the team has intelligence that a gang are going to carry out a huge robbery worth millions of pounds. The gang are known to use weapons which makes it doubly dangerous.
Can Jane prove herself and help the team find the clues and get arrests.
A good story. I have read better but it's quite gripping. Worth a read.
Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

I love these books with tennison in the younger years and the highly male dominated work force
This book just like the others is so hard to put down read it it'll the early hours
I'd highly recommend this book along with the others Lynda la plante has written
Brilliant t read once again , go and buy it and sit down and enjoy !!!!