This is a well-written and welcome monograph. One may think that Britain's screen media of the 1960s and early 1970s has been extensively examined, but Estella Tincknell's illuminating study offers a fresh and distinctive perspective though its focus on power relations in police procedural and gangster narratives produced during or set in the period. Tincknell's forensic investigation of film and television case studies – including excellent analysis of their soundtracks – uncovers compelling evidence that the era's privileging of male authority, desire and agency endures in modern reimaginings, crime works that may promise a more enlightened and revisionist framing but ultimately reiterate a strongly masculinist discourse. It is an open and shut case that this original and authoritative volume will prove an important addition to the critical literature on British film and television.

Stephen Glynn, Lecturer in Film and Television, De Montfort University, UK

An absorbing and authoritative book. Tincknell brings together Britain's favourite genre – the crime story – and its most famous decade, the 1960s – to examine persistent myths of masculinity, power and whiteness.

Christine Geraghty, Emeritus Professor, University of Glasgow, UK