"I'M SURE THE VIEWERS ... WILL BE ON EDGE ... DEVELOPMENTS IN THE 2005 (ELIZABETH GEORGE) NOVEL HINT THAT REACTIONS TO THE MYSTERY! SERIES MAY HAVE SHAPED THE NOVELIST'S VISION OF THINGS TO COME — WHICH INCLUDES GOOD TELEVISION THANKS TO MYSTERY!"
Barbara Peters
The Poisoned Pen
The novel from which this adaptation is drawn is the 10th in "Elizabeth George's" bestselling series. I put her name in quotes because EG is in fact a pseudonym, though it makes absolutely no difference to know the author's real name. The British would say that she writes in the "cozy" tradition, but then again they put PD James in cozies and neither author really fits what Americans—or at least, I—understand by the term. A cozy is best translated as the traditional mystery, that is one that flows from the classics of detection written by Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers, books that are rich in character and in place but driven by plot. And the plot is driven by detection, by solving a crime that is crafted to puzzle the reader (or viewer) and challenge his or her own skills.
Elizabeth George's novels are intensely nuanced in characterizations and In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner might slightly baffle the new viewer as to what's going on with police woman Barbara Havers and between her and her superior officer, Superintendent Thomas Lynley. The answer lies not just in their working history but in actions taken in an earlier episode, Deception on His Mind.
But anyone can work out that the tension in this episode springs from the hierarchical nature of policing; from Havers' intuitive approach and her breaches of conduct (her failure to follow orders); from some kind of personal if not sexual tension running between her and Lynley; and from Lynley's own need to be both her superior and her friend, as well as from his dependence on her as a sleuth. When she is the one who ultimately cracks the case of the double murder on the moor, and thereby shows up the insecure local Sergeant, it leaves a hook well sunk into viewers as they wonder how Lynley will react in the next episode in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries.
His own (new) marriage to police psychologist Helen is never easy, either.
This production does well in keeping plot to the foremost while retaining its character-driven quality and never slacking the pace. Each scene—and they shift rapidly from player to player and place to place—drives the story forward. Since TV is necessarily more compressed than a novel, some details lovingly explored by George are dropped or just sketched: for instance, the wonders of Calder Moor where the first murders occur, its myriad limestone caves, its collapsed copper mines, are quickly glimpsed just as background for the murders and their discovery.
Nor is it entirely clear that one of the victims, Nicola Maiden, daughter of a retired local copper, the legendary Andy Maiden whose life was (apparently) defined by work, dropped out of university not just to pick up income (and kicks) as a prostitute but as a dominatrix in the S&M trade. That's more than the viewer needs to absorb. But the marriage of Andy and Nan comes across vividly.
And Nicola's betrayal of her parents loses none of its punch. Her father, and her lover, the blue-blooded Julian Britton, inevitably become a major focus of the murder team. I found the young actor cast as Britton unappealing so it made it a bit harder for me to enter into the jealous obsession his second cousin Samantha entertains for him, thus making herself another suspect, but hey, that's completely subjective. Sex always is, no?
Havers doggedly pursues the story of the other victim, Terry Cole, a young artist with a bent for get-rich schemes. Though her quest has her breaking a direct order from Lynley to quit Derbyshire for London, what she discovers eventually unmasks the murderer.
I'm sure that viewers (who include me who hasn't read recent George novels and thus remains in the dark about where the series is going) will be on edge waiting for the next installment to see how things with Lynley and Havers play out. And while giving nothing away, I can say that a Poisoned Pen Bookstore staff member has clued me in that developments in the 2005 novel hint that reactions to the Mystery! series may have shaped the novelist's vision of things to come—which includes much good television thanks to Mystery!
Mystery! The Inspector Lynley Mysteries "In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner" airs Sundays, June 26, 2005 at 9 p.m. on Channel 8.
