He is a Balliol man, a suave toff in a suit as sharp as his cheekbones. Unusually buff for a posho, but that is because he is played by Leo Suter, who was Harald Hardrada in Vikings: Valhalla until about 10 minutes ago and evidently still has protein shakes to use up.
She is a working-class Norfolk lass (“Swaffham High, Swaffham Tech”) in sturdy boots and a utility vest who is in the last chance saloon, job-wise, because of her habit of mouthing off to her bosses. She is played by Sofia Barclay, best known as Dr O’Sullivan in Ted Lasso but not getting to use her comedy chops here, because you mustn’t be funny in front of Balliol men. They find it damn confusing and have to be taken off for a lie down.
Together, they are Detective Inspector Tommy Lynley and Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers in what is described as a contemporary update of the original novels by Elizabeth George. Now look – I know what you’re saying, but no. There has not, in fact, recently been a contemporary update. That was The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, starring Nathaniel Parker as the eponymous hero and Sharon Small as his scrappy sidekick, and it began broadcasting a quarter of a century ago and finished in 2008. I’m sorry. We are all so much older than we think. And yet, curiously, younger than we feel. I blame the years from Brexit to Trump for that.
Anyway. Now we have paused briefly to shake our heads in disbelief, let us return to the fray. This new endeavour – not to be confused with Endeavour, the Morse spinoff on ITV that was not Lewis, though the original Parker/Small show was designed to compete with both, so I hope that’s clear – is entitled simply Lynley. Which is as contemporary as all-get-out already, before the credits have even rolled.
Havers is assigned to the new DI up from London. She is not looking forward to “playing nursemaid to some fresh-faced city boy who doesn’t know his arse from his elbow”. But wait. What is that coming up behind her? Is it a wardrobe that took a wrong turn at reception? No, it is her new, very tall, very experienced, very “This is my arse, this is my elbow and I have no trouble distinguishing the one from the other” new boss. Fortunately, she is too feisty – a word I feel in my very marrow was capitalised in the script – for mortification to endure long.
They are soon investigating a body found on an island beach – a man apparently murdered by being biffed on the head. He is Guy Brouard (Dave Anders), a very rich man who owns the entire island and, it is gradually revealed, likes to get up to the kind of things you would expect a very rich man who owns an entire island to get up to. He also has a wife, Ruth (Wendy Nottingham), who is dying of cancer and is largely tended to by his all-seeing housekeeper, Valerie (Amanda Drew) and his groundsman, Paul (Angus Cooper), plus a son who is expecting to inherit the place. No spoilers, but the son is married to an attractive woman, there’s a comely female student on a dig he’s funding on the estate and Valerie’s young niece is also hanging around the place for the summer.
You can see from this that a lot of plot is about to happen, in between Lynley dropping bits of Latin into the conversation at every opportunity, and it is paid out with a sure hand and at a steady pace. Everything happens for a reason, every Chekhovian gun from sex tapes to pottery shards goes off, every loose end is tied up. And whenever we need to be kept in narrative suspense for a bit, we get a glimpse into the private lives of the central pair. Lynley is on barely-to-no-speaks with his parents; he may have left some professional or personal trouble behind in the capital; and his love interest, Helen Clyde, will be played by Niamh Walsh but not yet. Oh, and his new boss (Daniel Mays) hates him for reasons as yet unspecified. It might be the Latin. It might be that they have genuine beef. Or maybe the boss just wants to look more like a wardrobe himself. Time will tell.
Havers visits her parents frequently but there is clearly a secret sorrow plaguing them all. She’s only second lead, so I suppose there will be more on her later.
Everything, in short, is as it should be – for fans of the books, for fans of the old series and for fans of undemanding telly. Deo gratias.
• Lynley aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now
