We've now come to the end of the BBC's thriller Undercover , and there is pretty well universal agreement that somehow a very promising concept had turned out something close to a disaster. ( Spoilers after paragraph 4. ) Watching the show, I was reminded of a talk I attended a while ago on the nature of psychological thrillers. The speaker explained that the difference between a psychological thriller and a murder mystery was that the thriller is character-driven, while the mystery is plot-driven. And it was made clear that, from the speaker's viewpoint, this made psychological thrillers a higher form of literature. The reality is, I suspect, far less black and white. While it's true that the plot-driven 'puzzle solving' aspect of a murder mystery usually takes centre stage, very few modern murder mysteries ignore character - think of something like The Bridge , for instance. But there is still a feeling among writers of 'literary fiction' that ch...

I've mostly been enjoying the BBC series Undercover (Sunday at 9pm). However, there did seem to be a bit of a gaping plot hole. In it, the character Nicholas Johnson, played by the brilliant Adrian Lester, has a secret life that is gradually getting out of control. 'Nicholas Johnson' is a made up person (within the drama), adopted by Lester's character 20 years ago when he was an undercover cop. He falls in love in character and ends up living the lie. Only now his old life is intruding on him. So far, so good (if a little unlikely). When Lester's character originally devised the Nicholas Johnson cover, which we see happening in the second episode, he had to think of an occupation that didn't involve regular hours so he could turn up anywhere any time. So he plumped for 'writer'. We learn that he writes crime novels. And that it's just as well that he came up with a detailed cover story, as the people he is infiltrating run a background check on h...