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Dalgliesh
1983 - 2005 6.9 (7 votes) 10 Seasons
Genres
Crime Drama
Networks
ITV1
Created By
P. D. James

Dalgliesh

Overview

Centred on the cases of P. D. James' gentleman detective Adam Dalgliesh. In addition to his career as a policeman, Dalgliesh is also a published poet and an intensely private man.

Top Cast

Roy Marsden
Roy Marsden

Adam Dalgliesh

Seasons

Season 1 poster
Season 1 (1983)

When Dr. Edwin Lorrimer, a forensic scientist working at a private laboratory is found killed, Detective Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh is sent to investigate. Dalgliesh had been in the area a few months previously investigating the murder of a young woman found in an abandoned car. There are several suspects: Lorrimer's subordinate, Clifford Bradley, who despises him; the new head of the laboratory, Maxim Howarth, who is jealous of his sister's relationship with him; a colleague, Paul Middlemass, who had a fight with Lorrimer. There is also a gruff and likely unethical policeman who was on the grounds of the laboratory at the time of the killing and a local pathologist who is raising his two young children after his wife leaves him for another man. When one of the suspects is also murdered, Dalgliesh learns a key piece of information.

7 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Death Of An Expert Witness (1)
1983-04-08

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 2: Death Of An Expert Witness (2)
1983-04-15

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 3: Death Of An Expert Witness (3)
1983-04-22

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 4: Death Of An Expert Witness (4)
1983-04-29

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 5: Death Of An Expert Witness (5)
1983-05-06

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 6: Death Of An Expert Witness (6)
1983-05-13

Commander Dalgliesh is called to Norfolk to look into a murder, which he believes has no connection with the case that he is currently working on. But then one of the forensic scientists at Hoggatt's laboratory, who are experts in violent death, is found murdered.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 7: Death Of An Expert Witness (7)
1983-05-20

This is the conclusion of the 7-part Death of an Expert Witness, as included in The Adam Dalgliesh Chronicles, a Region 2 DVD collection.

Runtime: N/A min
Season 2 poster
Season 2 (1984)

When a student nurse with a penchant for petty blackmail is lethally poisoned during a routine procedure, Commander Dalgliesh and Inspector Massingham have to discover which, of the many guilty secrets held by the staff and students at Nightingale House, was a strong enough motive for murder.

5 episodes

Season 3 (1985)

Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh investigates the death of Alice Liddell who ran a home for unwed mothers. One of those residents is Sally Jupp who was a witness in a drugs smuggling and murder investigation in London. Sally works at the local manor house for the Maxies and it is apparent that eldest son Stephen has more than just a passing interest in her. The night after they announce their engagement, Sally is found strangled in her bed. The question is whether her death is related to the London investigation or a completely different reason altogether. Her engagement created a good deal of ill feeling among the Maxies and several guests in the house with any one of them having a motive to kill her.

6 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Cover Her Face (1)
1985-02-17

Unwed mother Sally Jupp meets Dalgliesh when her friend Stavros is murdered. Dr. Stephen Maxie makes his mother hires Sally as housemaid, but the rest of the household hates her. Dalgliesh tracks the drug ring Stavros was part of.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 2: Cover Her Face (2)
1985-02-24

Sally blackmails her uncle for airfare to Venezuela. Stephen's engagement to Sally shatters the family. Dalgliesh narrows the suspects down to the one person missing when the victim was found.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 3: Cover Her Face (3)
1985-03-03

Dalgiesh learns of Sally's attempt to blackmail Victor and her letters from Venezuela. Deborah is attacked. The Maxie family and guests start suspecting each other.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 4: Cover Her Face (4)
1985-03-10

Adam Dalgleish has found circumstantial evidence involving the Maxie's daughter, Deborah, in the drugs and murder case he is investigating. Her brother is one of the suspects in another murder that took place in the Maxie's manor.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 5: Cover Her Face (5)
1985-03-17

Deborah Maxie suspects her brother of killing his fiancee Sally and tells their mother. Dalgleish learns that Sally has been getting letters from Venezuela; her uncle confesses that he had been in her room the night she was killed.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 6: Cover Her Face (6)
1985-03-24

Martha's venom spills out, and she admits having put sleeping pills in Sally's cocoa. A surprise arrives from Venezuela, and the two murderers of Dalgleish's two cases are brought to justice.

Runtime: N/A min
Season 4 (1985)

Frustrated with his career, Commander Dalgliesh is invited to Toynton Grange, a home for the disabled, by his old teacher, Father Baddeley, who is resident there. But unbeknown to Dalgliesh, something happening at the Grange is making the Father uneasy, and Dalgliesh quickly finds himself investigating a series of mysterious deaths.

6 episodes

Episodes
Season 5 (1988)

Sir Paul Berowne - a prominent Government Minister - turns to his old friend Adam Dalgleish following a series of threatening letters delivered to his London home. The minister's wife is in an adulterous affair with a prominent surgeon and she makes no secret of it. Berowne's only daughter is involved in left-wing politics and rejects her conservative father. Adding to his woes, his own mother favoured her son who was killed in an IRA terrorist ambush over Paul. The informal investigation has barely began when Dalgliesh is faced with a series of bizarre deaths that turn the case into an urgent assignment.

6 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: A Taste For Death (1)
1988-10-14

Commander Adam Dalgliesh is asked by a friend, Home Office Minister Sir Paul Berowne, to be aware correspondence of a personal nature he's received. He's not being blackmailed and so there's nothing to investigate per se and he only wants Adam to keep an eye on what's going on. Sir Paul's personal life is somewhat complicated. He lives in the shadow of his late brother Hugo and has little time for his wife Barbara who is having an affair with Stephen Lampart. She is now pregnant but insists that the child is his. He's fed up with it all and decides to chuck it all in....

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 2: A Taste For Death (2)
1988-10-21

Sir Paul Berowne gives his latest anonymous letter to Adam Dalgliesh and the next day visits Father Francis Barnes at St. Matthews Church in Paddington, requesting permission to spend one night alone in a spare room at his church. The next day, Sir Paul's body is found by Mrs. Wharton, a church volunteer, his throat slit. There was also a homeless man, Harry Mack, also dead in the room with him. Dalgliesh takes charge of the case and learns from Father Francis that he had only known Berowne for less than two weeks but had noticed something very peculiar at communion. ...

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 3: A Taste For Death (3)
1988-10-28

Commander Dalgliesh and Insp. Miskin continue their interviews with those associated with the case. Gordon Halliwell, the family chauffeur, came to the Berowne family after serving with the deceased Hugo in the army. He freely admits that he and Sir Paul didn't along. Barbara Berowne's brother Dominic Swayne has an alibi. Dalgliesh also questions him about the death of the Berowne family's servant, Diana Travers, who drowned. Swayne says she wasn't an unemployed actress as she claimed. Berowne's daughter Sarah didn't get on with her father and were estranged owing to ...

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 4: A Taste For Death (4)
1988-11-04

Berowne's daughter clearly has a secret that she has not shared with anyone except Ivor Garrett. Dalgliesh re-interviews Lady Berowne, Sir Paul's mother, and she lets it slip that he had a mistress. She is Carole Washburn who tells Dagliesh that Berowne had gone through a religious conversion. She refuses however to disclose anything else about their relationship other than they met at work and were always discreet. Dalgliesh visits the site where Diana Travers drowned and learns from the restaurant doorman, Henry, that Berowne was there the day of the drowning and ...

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 5: A Taste For Death (5)
1988-11-11

Millicent Gentle tells Dagliesh of the day Diana Travers died. Annoyed by the revelers on the water she had gone out and saw Sir Paul Berowne fighting with another man. He was soaking wet and she invited him back to her cottage to dry off. Berowne admitted the fight was about a woman and they spent about two hours talking. She also saw him on the day of his death when he came to visit but he had little to say and left quietly. Dalgliesh quickly determines that Berowne had fought with his brother-in-law Dominic Swayne who denies killing him. Dalgliesh is upset to learn...

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 6: A Taste For Death (6)
1988-11-18

Dalgliesh visits the church where Berowne was killed and is surprised when Father Francis finds a button in the offerings box. Emily Wharton thinks it must have been young Darren who put it there instead of the 10 pence she had given him to go and light a candle. The Berowne's cook, Miss Matlock, clearly recognizes the button but says she can't recall where she's seen it. Halliwell the chauffeur tells Dagliesh that he drove Sir Paul's mother to the church on the evening her son was killed.

Runtime: N/A min
Season 6 (1991)

Whilst on holiday on the English coast in Norfolk, Commander Adam Dalgliesh becomes embroiled in the hunt for the serial killer - The Whistler - amidst a backdrop of mystery and intrigue surrounding the running of a local nuclear power station.

8 episodes

Episodes
Episode 1: Devices And Desires (1)
1991-01-04

At the seaside dealing with his late aunt Jane's estate, Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh learns that a serial killer, known locally as the Whistler, is on the prowl. The local policeman in charge of the case, Tony Rickards, seeks his advice.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 2: Devices And Desires (2)
1991-01-11

When another dead woman is found, many assume it is the work of the Whistler. Discovered by Miles Lessingham while on his way to Dr. Alex Mair's home for a dinner party, the woman had been strangled and was lying just off the road. The victim was Christine Baldwin, an employee at the nuclear facility. Still worried about the computer virus and the impact it could have on the safety of the nuclear reactors, Toby Gledhill decides to join the anti-nuclear movement.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 3: Devices And Desires (3)
1991-01-18

Walking home late one night, Commander Dalgliesh discovers the body of Hilary Robarts. The killing has all the hallmarks of the Whistler's work but this is now the second woman from the nuclear plant to be killed. Ryan Blaney was out walking at the time and doesn't have much of an alibi.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 4: Devices And Desires (4)
1991-01-25

With Toby Gledhill's suicide, there is one less suspect in the mix. No one is quite sure why he killed himself, let alone in such a public manner, but most are putting it down to a breakdown of some sort. Chief Inspector Rickards continues to interview various suspects and possible witnesses and is starting to find holes in many of their alibis.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 5: Devices And Desires (5)
1991-02-01

While strolling on the beach, Adam Dalgliesh comes across a tramp who is wearing relatively new trainers that may match some of the footprints found at one of the murder sites. The computer virus in the nuclear facility's computer system is getting out of control and they are forced to take the reactors off-line.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 6: Devices And Desires (6)
1991-02-08

Caroline Amphlett's true purpose in working at the nuclear plant is revealed and Dalgliesh confers with the Security Service on the next steps. It is not clear however who it is that rammed her boat. Chief Inspector Rickards is ready to close the Robarts murder case as unsolved but Dalgliesh urges him to continue and provides his own profile of the killer.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 7: Unnatural Causes
1993-01-02

Commander Dalgleish of Scotland Yard investigates the apparent murder of a well-known author who is found floating in a dinghy with his hands chopped off. The man, Maurice Seton, had recently been ejected from a private club when he was caught photographing some of its members at the gambling tables. The club had been under suspicion of laundering large amounts of cash and had been the object of a police investigation for some time.

Runtime: N/A min
Episode 8: A Mind To Murder
1995-01-02

Scotland Yard Commander Adam Dalgliesh has been on leave following the death on duty of a member of his team, DS Sarah Hillier. His superiors order him back to work to investigate the murder of the Director of the Steen Clinic, which specializes in psychiatric cases. Dalgliesh and his team can't quite figure out why they've been assigned to what seems to be a straightforward murder case but it's clear that his superiors want him to get in and out as quickly as possible. There is any number of possible suspects and as Dalgliesh is fond to say, the motive for murder is inevitably greed or love.

Runtime: N/A min
Season 7 (1997)

Peverell Press, respected London publishing house with two hundred years of tradition, is taken over by new management. Gerard Etienne, new yuppie CEO, wants to implement radical changes. Soon he is found dead under bizzare circumstances. Commander Adam Dalgliesh, policeman in charge of the investigation, is convinced that the reasons for the death lie in the sinister past.

3 episodes

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