Detective Inspector Lynley and his trusty lieutenant, DS Havers, are back. Seventeen years after The Inspector Lynley Mysteries slunk off our screens, following six series as a fixture on BBC One, the corporation has decided to reboot the franchise. But will this new drama – pithily titled Lynley – be a hard-hitting reimagining, or a more faithful resurrection of the Monday night staple?
On a final warning for repeated insubordination, DS Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay) is assigned to the new DI up from the big smoke. Tommy Lynley (Leo Suter), it turns out, isn’t quite like the rest of the team in this rural, East Anglian backwater: he’s an Oxford law graduate and the heir to an earldom, who drives a vintage Jensen Interceptor. “What is a bloke like you doing in a job like this?” Havers asks him on their first day. That’s the twist with Lynley. Where aristocratic status opened doors for Peter Wimsey and Albert Campion, Lynley is the victim of reverse snobbery, his attitude and motivation repeatedly questioned in spite of his work ethic and commitment. After all, he might carry himself like “Beau Brummell” (as one colleague, au fait with the Regency era trendsetter, puts it) but – dammit! – he gets results.
