I'm not that Bookish... but acting with Mark Gatiss has inspired a little reading

Rising star Connor Finch stars as a bookseller's assistant in the Sherlock creator's new detective drama. He talks TV heroes, rock star dreams and why he relates to his working-class character

- By Karen Rockett

LONDON 1946 is a dangerous and chaotic city, the mean streets of the capital often bearing witness to the strangest of crimes and the knottiest of murders. Fortunately there’s a brand new TV detective on the block to solve them.

Emmy Award-winning writer Mark Gatiss, who wrote and starred in Sherlock, playing Mycroft Holmes, again writes and stars in new crime drama Bookish — and fans of Sherlock are sure to love this one too. Gatiss plays the erudite and unconventional Gabriel Book who, from his antiquarian bookshop, is also a maverick consultant detective to the local police. The thousands of books that line the shelves of his shop provide him with all the knowledge he needs to solve even the most puzzling of crimes. But like all true detectives he has a young sidekick to help him of course.

Step forward Jack Blunt, fresh out of prison, and played by rising star Connor Finch who was last seen in the TV adaptation of Dolly Alderton’s memoir, Everything I Know About Love, as heartthrob love interest Street. In Bookish, described as “Sherlock Holmes meets Line of Duty” he quickly proves himself to be a worthy assistant both in the shop and in Book’s murder investigations.

"I love the character of Jack. I felt an immediate connection with him when I read the script,” Connor tells the Daily Express about his new role in TV's latest “cosy crime” period drama.

“He is a working-class kid who has suddenly been given this opportunity. He doesn’t quite know why but he wants to do the best with the chance he has been given. I can really relate to that.”

Connor, 29, looks suitably bookish himself with his angular face and specs but, despite coming from a working-class family in Clacton, Essex, he wanted to be a dancer or a musician, ending up the only boy in his dance school. He attended the Dance Foundation in Clacton taking classes in tap, modern dance, jazz and ballet.