Good cop
Colin Buchanan breathes life into the part of DI Peter Pascoe. He's university educated and polite to a fault. He's a deep thinker, sensitive and liberal. Yet all this hasn't helped his personal life. His father is disappointed he didn't become a farmer, and his wife is now his ex. Buchanan got his first taste of playing a cop in A Touch of Frost but, before he became Pascoe, he was best known for playing Hodge in All Quiet on the Preston Front. Despite having an impressively long list of credits to his name, the Scottish actor has never appeared onscreen as a Scottish character!

Bad cop
Warren Clarke masterfully portrays DS Andy Dalziel, who he once described as "a total pig". Dalziel is an old school cop: loud, rude and so not politically correct. He's also insightful, intelligent and rarely misses a trick when it comes to solving crime. Clarke started acting in the 60s. One of his first roles was as one of the droogs in A Clockwork Orange. He's also appeared in such TV institutions as Bergerac, Blackadder and Sleepers.

Book 'em
The creative mind behind the Dalziel and Pascoe parternship, Reginald Hill, hasn't tired of his dynamic detectives since he first wrote about them in the 60s. The first novel, A Clubbable Woman, was published in 1970. Hill has written more than 40 novels about the detectives since then. He, and the novels, are still going strong today. The most recent, Good Morning, Midnight, was released in February 2004. The rave reviews rolled in as usual: "Reginald Hill's novels are really dances to the music of time, his heroes and villains interconnecting, their stories entwining". Ian Rankin, Scotland On Sunday