Radio preview: Killing | Tartan Noir

Crimes, real and imagined, on our mean streets and on a global scale, hold sway on the airwaves this week, not least as Radio Scotland launches its Crime and Punishment season with Billy Kay’s four-part KILLING: THE HISTORY OF MURDER IN SCOTLAND, which looks at the development of violent crime through the centuries, whether conducted by grave gentlemen with pistols at dawn or urban heidbangers wielding chibbers.

Killing, Monday, Radio Scotland, 2:05pm

Living with the Evidence, Tuesday, Radio Scotland, 2:05pm

Tartan Noir, Wednesday, Radio Scotland, 2:05pm

How Iraq Changed the World, Tuesday, Radio 4, 8pm

After Saddam, Tomorrow, Radio 4, 1:30pm

Monday’s first episode, Blood and Honour, examiners the deadly legacy of the blood feud, ranging from the family vendettas of the 16th century, through 18th century duellists to the violent gangs of today’s cities.

Tuesday sees Isabel Fraser examine the jury system and whether it needs reforming in LIVING WITH THE EVIDENCE, while, as its title suggests, TARTAN NOIR is a three-part survey of Scottish crime writing, with Edi Stark talking to the likes of Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Denise Mina and William McIlvanney about what is so 
distinctive, or otherwise, about the nation’s fictional dark side.

The all too real consequences of Bush and Blair’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003 are surveyed in a Radio 4 season looking at the conflict ten years on. In HOW IRAQ CHANGED THE WORLD on Tuesday, writer and broadcaster John Kampfner discusses the global repercussions with leading thinkers from Britain, China, Russia and the United States – was it really a justified war on terror, or has it simply acted as a recruiting drive for terrorists?

BBC foreign correspondent Hugh Sykes returns to Iraq ten years on in 
AFTER SADDAM, to find out how its citizens are coping after invasion, insurgency, sectarian violence and three democratic 
elections.

He journeys through a land where the kind of everyday amenities that we take for granted can’t be depended upon, be it water supply, security or basic education.