Here’s a scenario for you. There’s a tense detective drama, and a slick, distinguished and serious-looking bloke with greying hair is stomping about, shouting for no apparent reason. His name is Boyd and he looks at cold cases and shouts randomly, and the television programmes he stars in are unremittingly bleak and you haven’t got a clue what’s going on because the stories are all so complicated. You can’t help watching though, because despite all this confusion and shouting it’s all very watchable and like most police procedurals you get swept up in all the momentum and speed of it all. This is Waking The Dead, and this is the writing style of Barbara Machin. She has a new police drama airing on Bank Holiday Monday. I’ve seen it. It’s madness.

In Waking The Dead, Boyd is the man shouting, but in Kiss Of Death, EVERYONE SHOUTS. AT EACH OTHER. BECAUSE THEY HATE EACH OTHER.

In Waking The Dead, at least the rest of the gang get on, with the exception of Boyd who’s a moody old git. In Kiss Of Death, everyone in the investigation team is very secretive and everyone seems to have previous with everyone else.

The reason they’re gathered together is that a mutilated body (or at least parts of it) has been found, and parts of it keep popping up in installments. It’s really gruesome stuff, and surely the most gruesome cop drama that’s ever been on telly. There’s mouldy old bits of groin, bloody it of head, lips, arseholes… you name it.

What’s more, the killer is leading the team a merry old dance. He’s clever, and some of the stuff he does pitches one member of the team against each other. I liked that aspect of this one-off drama very much. By the time it’s all over, the team are mentally exhuasted and fed up with one another.

There are also other things to bear in mind if you’re thinking about watching this. Flashbacks. Flashforwards. Flashsideways. Flashing everywhere. Jerky cameras. Quick little camera movements. Very quick close-ups. Another flashback for good measure. Telling the story from different points of view seems to be Kiss Of Death’s usp, but these sorts of devices can and will only work if the story is strong enough.

If you don’t keep up you will not know what the bloomin’ heckery is going on, so be warned.

But they just about get away with it, and it’s a decent, but very, very flawed, watch. Louise Lombard stars, Danny Dyer is in it doing his gruff cockerney thing, and Leonara Chrichlow from Sugar Rush is also in it.