BLUE MURDER SET 2

Product Description A top cop dedicated to her job and devoted to her family. On the job, Janine Lewis deals with drive-by executions, decomposed bodies, and abducted children. At home, she interviews nannies, schedules parent-teacher conferences, and bolts breakfast on the run. Such is the life of a Detective Chief Inspector on the Manchester police force who also happens to be a single mum raising four kids. Caroline Quentin (Jonathan Creek, Men Behaving Badly) brings sensitivity, passion, and wry humor to her role as a woman balancing the demands of a high-risk, high-profile profession with the need to nurture her high-maintenance family. Ian Kelsey (Casualty) co-stars as DI Richard Mayne, Janine's sexy second in command - a source of romantic and sometimes professional tension on their tight-knit team. In four taut crime dramas, Blue Murder realistically depicts the everyday toils and triumphs of police work alongside the insistent tug of family life for a single mother. DVD SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE text interviews with stars Caroline Quentin and Ian Kelsey and cast filmographies. Amazon.com The first season of Blue Murder was very good; the second season verges on great. It may not reach the brittle heights of Prime Suspect--the writing isn't as psychologically rich--but it's in the same weight class. DCI Janine Lewis (Caroline Quentin, Jonathan Creek) isn't a super-sleuth. She's a single mother with four kids, an uneasy relationship with her ex-husband, and sexual tension with her lead detective, Richard Mayne (tall and handsome Ian Kelsey). She runs her investigative team with brisk efficiency, while her home life tends towards chaos. She navigates the twisty plots of these four episodes not through lightning bursts of deduction, but by piecing evidence together bit by bit--and this diligence is wonderfully engaging. Seemingly simple events slowly unveil a more complex and troubling story: A drowned dog leads to identical twins and infidelity; a mean prank draws four men into murder and revenge; robbery, hit and run, and the killing of a cop are intricately connected. During the investigation of a missing child, Mayne starts a new relationship and Lewis starts to lose her cool reserve. Careful plotting, vivid dialogue, solid acting from all the regulars (particularly Paul Loughran and Nicholas Murchie as Lewis's detective sergeants), and consi