Inspector Gamble (Patrick O'Connell) and Detective Sergeant Vicky Hicks (Joanna Van Gyseghem) pursue fraudsters, racketeers, and dodgy businessmen. I watched it alongside an anthology about 19th century emperors, Fraud Squad is almost as much a portrait of a bygone age.
The focus on financial crime means there is little violence, except in the last episode, so it's a bit tame for modern tastes. Having a financial services background I appreciated this aspect, though a few episodes are rather wordy and convoluted. The unpretentious Gamble has a stockbroker, his (ahem) gambling on shares would hardly do in a 21st century police drama, far too elitist. Conversations about money usually refer to guineas rather than pounds.
Among other anachronisms, Pros and Cons (which I rate an 8) recalls that splendid time when a businessman could employ a "dolly bird" to do very little except look good. The Hot Money Man (7), in the era of exchange controls, concerns the archaic crime of taking ones own money out of the country. The Great Blanket Factory Swindle (5) may have been satire, the firm's office wouldn't have looked out of place in The Forsyte Saga.
Two more I rate among the best. Run for Your Money (8) is about a gang of crooks who sell catalogues advertising non-existent houses for rent. In Double Deal (9) Charlie Dickens (Dinsdale Landen) steals every scene as the most outrageous conman since Horatio Bottomley. Smooth-talking Dickens is the only villain to get a date with Hicks, and it's one of only a couple of episodes in colour.
