Monday Musings - Hooked on Copper

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that someone urged me to watch the BBC America series, Copper. She thought I would enjoy it because there are a number of actors in the series who could easily play the role of Dylan Maguire (in the Black Swamp Mysteries series) or of Ryan O'Clery in my upcoming book, The Tempest Murders.

I was lost when I started watching the current show, so I went back to the first show of the first season. I've now finished watching the entire first season and have started on the second.

And I have to say I am completely hooked.

Over time, I have become very interested in the main characters. I found that I've reached the point where it doesn't much matter about the specific plot for the episode. What matters is how the characters are evolving and how the threads that tie each episode together wanes and flows, revealing more layers to each individual.

The backdrop is 1860's New York, specifically the Five Points area where a large number of Irish immigrants lived in slums and squalor.

There's Annie, a young girl who was married at the age of ten and who barely looks older than that now. However, she can manipulate with the best of them and her street savvy never fails to astonish me. Whoever dreamed up her character is a genius.

Of course, there's the main character, Kevin Corcoran, an Irish Detective who, at the beginning of Season I, has returned from fighting in the Civil War to find his wife has disappeared and their daughter is dead. The thread that weaves its way through Season I has him following leads in an attempt to find out whether his wife is alive or dead, and what happened to her and his only child.

I became very upset with Francis Maguire, a fellow Irish Detective who, it turns out, was quite capable of crossing the line and murdering at least two women in an attempt to keep his secret hidden. I like Maguire (the common surname with the main character in my Black Swamp Mysteries series notwithstanding) and I was very upset with him for moving so far to the dark side. I've reached the episode in Season II where he's brought back into the New York Police Department and he must work with Kevin Corcoran again. That will surely make sparks fly. (Shown above: Kevin Corcoran (played by Tom Weston-Jones) on the left and Francis Maguire (played by Kevin Ryan) on the right.)

I find myself more drawn to Robert Morehouse's character, also. He began with the persona of a spoiled, frequently drunken rich kid. But then I learned he'd lost a leg during the Civil War and Kevin and an escaped slave, Matthew Freeman, saved his life. When Southerners plot to set New York on fire before the end of the war, he shows his true personality and strength when he works undercover to foil their plans.

Do you watch certain series because you enjoy the characters? Do you read series books because you already know the characters and you want to know what happens to them?