Award-winning actor Martin Shaw leads an outstanding cast in this detective series set in tumultuous 1960s England -- specifically, in Northumberland, England's most northern county. Shaw delivers a pitch-perfect performance as the jaded but honorable Inspector George Gently in these engrossing mysteries, which originally aired in the fall of 2010 on BBC 1. The first of the two that comprise the show's third series is "Gently Evil." Here, called to a crime scene at a working-class boarding house, Gently and Detective Sergeant John Bacchus
(Lee Ingleby) find a woman horribly beaten to death, her eyes covered discreetly with a handkerchief. The victim also carried her daughter’s birth certificate, with the name of the child’s father crossed out and "satan" penciled in. Following this lead, Gently and Bacchus probe the twisted secrets of a family that seems to harbor pure evil. In the second mystery, "Peace & Love,"
nuclear submarines plan to dock at the local naval base, and young peace protesters from Durham University clash with the police. The next morning, the demonstrators’ fiery leader, faculty member Fraser Barratt, turns up dead at the dockside. The investigation takes Gently and Bacchus to the campus, where big changes are blowin’ in the wind -- and the social, political, and sexual tumult brings little peace.
