When a renowned up-and-coming footballer is murdered, the Manchester police send in one of their best investigators, Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis. With her no-nonsense approach coupled with a motherly instinct brought to the workplace from her other job as a single mother, Lewis pulls together her team through various versions of the crime, gathers up the leads, and brings out a satisfying solution.
But while this may sound like the typical “English tea at 2” BBC mystery, Blue Murder is far more than that. While not as edgy as Wire In the Blood (nor as good, Blood rules all), Murder stakes out a post-Prime Suspect era featuring a single mother balancing home life with the inexhaustible pursuit of criminals. In some ways there is a parallel to the TNT show The Closer — a strong-willed woman with a crack team of detectives — all a little unique and interesting
Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis is a great character, excellently portrayed by Caroline Quentin, who was equally as accomplished on the show Jonathan Creek. It’s a great balance between a strong-willed woman who runs her family with the same professionalism as she does her team, but is also warm and emotionally available, endearing her to both her kids at home, and the ones at work. There are some good undercurrents of humor in the stories, and while the plots themselves are not as deeply “mysterious”, nor particularly complicated, they are written well. The team is a an interesting mix of personalities and unique strengths. They generally meld well together and even disagreements are worked out in a realistic manner. As the episodes progress the various relationships build on each other, making it sometimes difficult to jump in without knowing the full back story. But each episode is self-contained enough to make them stand up on their own.
There are three episodes in this collection. Each one has its strong points, but of the three, the best is “Crisis Management”. The title of the episode comes from Lewis’s answer when a man at the bar asks her what she does for a living. A murder at an army base brings Inspector Lewis deeper into a case than ever before, both professionally and emotionally. It’s an excellent , understated performance and a compelling case to boot.
Acorn Media does another excellent job with the package, though the only extra is a behind the scenes piece. Acorn has been releasing a veritable cornucopia of BBC programs over the past few years and Blue Murder is another top-notch addition to the collection.
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