cbe41919 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.

newatt-2 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.

TheLittleSongbird I do admit it is not my absolute favourite of all detective shows, Inspector Morse gets that honour, but The Inspector Lynley Mysteries is a very underestimated and compelling one, made possible by the superb performances of Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small, who play two somewhat mismatched detectives Tom Lynley and Barbara Havers. Their chemistry was very believable and grew in the show's run. All the episodes were very well shot, and the locations were beautiful. The story lines were interesting, some are slower moving than others, and there were one or two disappointing final solutions, but other than those two minor problems the stories are fine. The dialogue is well written and delivered, the banter between Lynley and Havers always working a treat, and the direction of each episode is convincing enough. Overall, a very good detective show, not the best, but the worst? No. 9/10 Bethany Cox

chocolategenius 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.