The Inspector Lynley Mysteries 2

The first quartet of Inspector Lynley Mysteries from 2002 introduced the mismatched New Scotland Yard team from Elizabeth George's series of mystery novels: blueblood aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) and his working-class protégée Barbara Havers (Sharon Small), who struggled to find their working relationship in those early episodes. In the second series, the pair share a greater harmony, mutual respect, and even an intimacy born of working in the trenches of murder investigations, while also becoming a little more involved in each other's personal lives (though that doesn't suggest a budding romance: think Mulder and Scully in the first years of The X-Files). The four stories collected here (also available separately for $19.95 each) are all strong: Playing for the Ashes concerns the killing of a cricket star and a weird constellation of possible suspects, including a maternal philanthropist and her streetwalker daughter, an estranged wife, and a gang of animal-liberation activists. In the Presence of the Enemy is another high-profile case, involving a kidnapped child and an out-of-town cop with a mentally-unbalanced mother. A Suitable Vengeance takes Havers deep into the intrigues within Lynley's wealthy, Cornwall family after her partner's brother becomes a murder suspect. Finally, Deception on His Mind finds Havers working for an old chum who proves increasingly unstable during an investigation into the death of a Pakistani man. Recommended. (T. Keogh)