Book Review: You’re Nicked: Investigating British Television Police Series

You’re Nicked utilises a well-chosen range of case studies to examine historical trends in the development of the British television police series between the 1950s and the 2010s. Previous works in this area have either concentrated on a more limited timespan (Sydney-Smith, 2002), accommodated crime drama as part of a wider television history (Cooke, 2015), provided a multi-national critique (Turnbull, 2014), or focused on alternative sub-genres such as the detective drama (Piper, 2015). Lamb’s monograph therefore provides a much-needed overview of the national specifics of small screen cops and robbers – or as the author puts it, ‘series that regularly depict the routine work of police constables and detectives’ (2020, p. 3).