Dangerous Davies

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Detective Constable "Dangerous" Davies is the central character in a series of comic novels by Leslie Thomas and a TV series, The Last Detective made for ITV. The first novel in the series was also made into a film for television in 1981.

Davies is a low-ranked CID officer in the London borough of Willesden. He is nicknamed "Dangerous" ironically because he is the member of the department least likely to get into a dangerous situation. In the novels and TV series he is called "The Last Detective" from his superior's assessment of him as "the last detective you'd ever send out on a case". Despite this, Davies is by no means a poor detective, and although he can take longer than his colleagues, and is dogged by bad luck, he does usually "get his man" in the end.

The first story had him drifting into the years-old unsolved case of the disappearance of Celia Norris, a local girl with a dark side. With his friend, the perpetually unemployed and well-read Mod Lewis (he spends all his time at the library to save on heating) he tracks down the culprit, collecting plenty of cuts, bumps and bruises along the way at the hands of the local thugs. At one point he is "binned" — an empty dustbin is placed over his head, pinning his arms, and the outside is then hit with pickaxe handles.

Bernard Cribbins played Davies in the first television version of this story. At the end he was swathed in so many bandages as to be unrecognizable, and confined temporarily to a wheelchair.

Much of the appeal of the books and TV series lies in the comical interactions between Davies and the other characters. His kindly manner enables him to gain the confidence of witnesses and suspects, many of whom reveal their eccentricities to him. Other humour comes from his friendship with Mod, and from his relationship with his estranged wife Doris.