Jane Tennison Books In Order

Publication Order of Jane Tennison Books

The “Jane Tennison” series is a set of novels by bestselling mystery fiction author Lynda La Plante.

The author was born and raised in Liverpool where she attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art alongside the likes of Ian McShane, John Hurt, and Anthony Hopkins.

After graduating from college, she would become an actress that appeared in many productions with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

She also made appearances in many popular television series that include Rentaghost, “Z-Cars,” “Bergerac,” “The Professionals,” and “The Sweeney.” La Plante penned a script for a TV series while she was working with Gill Gascoigne on The Gentle Touch.

“Widows” which was inspired by a bank robbery would then be commissioned for Thames Television by Euston Films. The work would become one of the highest-rated series during the 1980s.

After the wild success of the film, Lynda would become a much sought-after writer of crime. It would not be long before Pan MacMillan signed her up and offered her first-ever book deal.

La Plante published “The Legacy” in 1987 and the work would become a bestseller and also garnered much critical acclaim.

In 1990, Lynda La Plante had begun working on “Prime Suspect” her next blockbuster television project. The work was released by Granada in 1991 and aired on PBS in the United States and in the United Kingdom. Soon after the author turned it into a novel.

She penned “The Prime Suspect” the debut novel of the “Jane Tennison” series of novels in 1991. In 1993, he was the winner of the Edgar Allen Poe Writers Award for her work on the “Jane Tennison” series.

She won a fellowship to the British Film Insitute and also won the BAFTA Dennis Potter Award. After garnering so much success, she established “La Plante Productions,” a television production company in 1993.
Through this, she penned and was the producer of several highly-rated TV series such as “The Commander,” “Trial and Retribution,” and “The Governor.” It was also at this time that she penned the “Lorraine Page” series of novels.

Inspired by the Blockbuster TV series “Prime Suspect,” the “Jane Tennison” series is a brilliant work with a fantastic character. She is a twenty-two-year-old detective that has just graduated from the Metropolitan Police Training Academy.

La Plante showcases how naive she is as a newbie learning the ropes. Both professionally and personally, we journey with Tennison as she learns some harsh lessons and becomes more mature.

Initially, she struggles a lot but then she forms a very strong friendship with Kathy Morgan a fellow WPC. They are two women in a police force dominated by males and have to prove that they have what it takes to do the job as women.

Over the course of the series, she becomes more proficient at her job and starts rising up the ranks through detective constable and fully-fledged detective by the third novel.

The “Tennison” novels are what you would call proper police procedurals as they showcase police investigations to the most minor detail. They are fleshed out just like a TV series such as “Whitechapel” and “Line of Duty” but in book format.

In “Tennison Jane” the first novel of the “Tennison” series of novels, Tennison Jane has just graduated from the police academy at Hendon.

The twenty-two-year-old woman is now on probation at Hackney police station but still lives at home with her parents and younger sister. Jane’s mother worries about her and pesters her to settle down and get children of her own.

At work, Jane spends much of her time working in reception, even though there is nothing she wants more than going on patrol.

She has had a very sheltered upbringing and tends to be naive about corruption, bribery, and drugs. When they find the body of a drug addict, the CID requests that she collate all incoming information for them.
Jane finds herself in the deep end when DCI Bradfield the new boss asks her to attend the post-mortem. When they cannot find any new leads Bradfield asks Tennison and Kath Morgan her new colleague to help.

She also has to work on the case of a CB radio enthusiast that unexpectedly tuned into the wavelength of some gangsters plotting a robbery. As it happens, Jane immediately recognizes the voice of one of the men on the radio.

The second novel of the “Tennison” series is “Hidden Killers,” which is set a few years after the events of the first novel.

Jane has finally completed her two-year probationary period and is now set on joining the CID. She is currently working as a decoy prostitute hoping to bring to justice a man suspected of sexual assault.
In another case, she gets into the CID and is assigned a case that no one seems to believe is weird in the least. The police had been called to an apartment in which a young mother had apparently drowned in a bath.

Jane begins investigating and backing up the theory with evidence. She feels like an experienced detective, even though her superiors do not seem to believe she is as good as she is.

Once she gets her teeth into a case she refuses to let go. While her colleagues who have more experience are moving from one case to another, she doubts their findings and methods.
When she becomes involved in what is a multiple-person case of rape, she finds herself putting her life at great risk in her quest for satisfactory answers. But her position as Detective Constable at Bow Street in London may just be at stake.

“Good Friday” is the third novel of the Tennison series of novels. The work is set in the mid-1970s when the IRA subjected the English capital to some horrific bombing campaigns.

Jane Tennison has now made a detective who is just about to get into the middle of one of her most complex cases. While heading to court one morning, she is caught up in an IRA-detonated bomb blast that leaves many horribly injured and several dead.

She is a key witness but insists that she cannot identify the man responsible for the bombing. When the media publishes pictures of Jane assisting some of the injured at the blast, she is put at risk of retaliation from the IRA.

Meanwhile, the annual CID dinner is set to be on Good Friday and will be held at the St Ermin Hotel. Tens of detectives are expected to attend alongside their wives, making it a perfect target.

As Jane arrives at the hotel, she realizes that the man working as the parking attendant was the Covent Garden bomber. Does she have the time to convince the senior officers to postpone everything or will the bomber take out the entire detective force?