Radio review

The fact that there are so many detective dramas on the radio might just be another instance of the sad truth that where television leads, radio tends to follow; or it might be evidence that the genre fits some hole in the contemporary psyche - you might care to compare the current vogue with the previous Golden Age, in the Thirties, and find parallels between that age of anxiety and the economic flux we live with now; in which case you could bring in real-life sleuth John Waite, whose Face the Facts seems now to concentrate almost exclusively on unpaid bills and bankrupts who function illegally as company directors.

Whatever the reason, there are plenty of the buggers around. This week on Radio 4 we've had one old-style detective drama - Ernest Bramah's blind mastersleuth Max Carrados, splendidly camped up by Simon Callow in "The Secret of Headlam Height" on Wednesday afternoon - and two modern ones: Resnick, John Harvey's lonely, jazz-loving (it isn't hard to spot the possible relationship between those two epithets) policeman, features in a new Monday afternoon serial, Cutting Edge; and Nick Fisher's Julie Enfield had her third outing last night in The Net and the Canal.

Actually, the full title is Julie Enfield Investigates the Net and the Canal, although DSI Enfield of the Met (played by Imelda Staunton) is possibly the least interesting element of the story. Granted, she's a woman in a man's world, but that doesn't give a high reading on the novelty meter; she's also testy and a bit of a maverick (no, the needle's still not budging); and she lives at home with her old socialist father (ooh, a slight quiver). The plot itself doesn't smack of newness, either - the first episode revolved around those old standbys, computer hackers and murder by a canal.

What's intriguing about The Net and the Canal, as with its predecessors, Terminus and The Smithfield Murders, is a mildly grotesque slant (the murder victim is very fat and manufactures squeaky toys) and the elaborate interweaving of the different plot strands - matched by the baroque sound- world that Richard Wortley conjures up for them. The cleverness is only skin-deep, possibly (although Fisher does make a rather neat analogy between the social impact of the canal in the 19th century and the Internet now); but you don't feel the urge to delve any deeper. It's a con, maybe; but if you don't mind being conned, that's hardly a crime, is it?