The Inspector Lynley Mysteries

I never read the novels so all I know of Lynley is the tv show. As far as British mystery show go it's not Morse, Lewis or Holmes. Also the two actresses who play Helen are so different that it makes no sense. Nathaniel Parker is good as the aristocratic Lynley and Sharon Small is cute and tough as Havers. As a midwestern American I love seeing the English countryside and the camera work is great. I bought the entire series on DVD and overall it's a worthwhile show. It does have it's weak points but taken as a whole it's very good. It could've been great, but just missed it. That said I will re-watch the shows.

I've just finished watching the whole series over a period of a month or so. This series is hard to rate, due to inconsistency -- not the actors' fault - the writing for these series is distinctly weird. It starts off as a pretty good series, then sometime around the middle or end of S2 it becomes distinctly bad, then for s3 and maybe early s4, almost too bad to watch, then it gets tolerably good again.

I didn't mind the replacement of Helen, in fact I thought the last Helen was the best of the lot. If she had been Helen all along, the series would have been better IMHO.

I haven't read the books and, given the horrible clichéd writing of many of the episodes that were based on the books, I am disinclined to.

I like the stories and the contradiction in characters with Lynley and Havers. It would happen and it gives a broad view of the crimes and their details rather than having two people from the same background. They have their problems but work together well in solving the mysteries. Sharon Small is a favorite of mine anyway but I like Nathaniel a lot too. I recognize the Jensen Interceptor in the first lot but what is the red car he drives later on. The "Helen" character is a dead loss and superfluous in the extreme. She gets In the way and contributes zilch. I like the series a lot, the stories are complex and different. A few of the episodes are exceptional.

I have really enjoyed this series. I have not read any of the books so I cannot comment on how true it is to them and really do not care. As a stand alone series I love all of the characters and I especially think Nathaniel Parker is a beautiful man and he and Sharon Small have an excellent chemistry. It is a dark show and the characters are neither perfect nor brilliant and they solve crime the old fashioned way. In other words, it is very non-Hollywood. I don't know how indicative they are of how crimes are investigated in Britain but I assure you CSI isn't even remotely close to how things are done in the US. I also like that the characters are not in their 20's and are mature, seasoned people. This is the only series that I have actually purchased. I cannot praise this show enough. I did not give it 10 stars simply because I know it isn't perfect.

I find this series very satisfying. It is character driven and has compelling dialog between Lynley and Sgt Havers. Havers is the real star of the show. She has very real problems in addition to working with her ponce of a boss. She lives paycheck to paycheck while caring for her parents, who suffer from dementia. How she juggles this situation with the need to be seconded to different locations to work on cases creates real angst in her character. In comparison, Lynley's problems are more social, as he frequently moralizes over dilemmas in his love life. Still, the rich detective and the hardscrabble sergeant work well with one another while solving cases that are twisty and intelligent. Like CSI, many of the cases are fashioned after recent cases in the news, so to say they are far fetched is not true. Try it out. You'll like the series.