P.D. James - The Murder Room
The Murder Roomfinds Martin Shaw's second effort at playing novelist P.D. James's renowned poet and detective hero, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh, all the more powerful yet painfully human as the character sorts out a double homicide and looks into his own heart to understand his emotional isolation. A psychiatrist, Neville Dupayne (Michael Maloney), and a young model (Ty Glaser) are gruesomely murdered within minutes of each other--one in a car garage and the other in a nearby wing, called the Murder Room, of a museum. The Murder Room focuses on famous killings in British history, and Dalgliesh finds it noteworthy that the two deaths he's investigating bear similarities to monstrous crimes described in the Room's display cases. Complicating matters is interference from British intelligence, which has its reasons for wanting the case handled discreetly. Kerry Fox, Samantha Bond, Nicholas Le Provost, and Sid Mitchell are all terrific as sundry suspects, and Tilly Blackwood and William Beck are a lot of fun as Dalgliesh's sometimes awkward Detective Inspector team. The suspense gets red-hot at times, and not just about the crime. The real question inThe Murder Roomis whether Dalgliesh can get his personal life together in time to accept the love being offered by the delightful Emma Lavenham (Janie Dee), the enchanting scholar  he met inDeath in Holy Orders.--Tom Keogh