This Beloved Noughties Crime Drama Is Finally Making A Return

Almost two decades after fans launched a campaign to save beloved noughties crime drama The Inspector Lynley Mysteries from cancellation, the BBC is launching a reboot. Starring Nathaniel Parker as the poshest copper on telly – that’s DI Tommy Lynley, 8th Earl of Asherton – opposite Sharon Small as working class DS Barbara Havers, the high octane show ran for six series from 2001 to 2008, praised for its exploration of gender and class alongside its gripping investigations.

Simply titled Lynley, here’s what to expect from the BBC’s new series.

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What To Expect From The BBC’s Inspector Lynley Reboot

From the producers of Wolf Hall and All Creatures Great and Small, Lynley was first revealed last autumn when filming was already underway. Flash forward to summer 2025, and the BBC has revealed new imagery and a tentative release date: autumn.

What Will Happen?

Tommy Lynley (Leo Suter) may be a brilliant detective inspector in the police force, but he will always be somewhat of an outsider thanks to his aristocratic upbringing. But when he is paired up with salt-of-the-earth sergeant Barbara Havers (Sofia Barclay) with her maverick attitude and working class background, a formidable team forms, the unlikely duo bonded by their desire for justice.

Filmed in Ireland in autumn 2024, Lynley and Havers are joined by DCI Brian Nies (Daniel Mays), the astute senior detective at the Three Counties Major Incident Team. There’s conflict here: Nies resists Lynley’s talent partly because of his own insecurities about class, and partly because he resents no longer being the smartest person in the room.

Like the original ‘00s series, the BBC’s new reboot will be based on Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley novels, which she started writing in the ‘80s and continues to work on (to date there are 22 with a 23rd on its way). We can therefore expect the return of beloved characters like love interest Helen Clyde (Nimah Walsh), Lynley’s former Oxford classmate who crosses his path on a fateful case. George says she is ‘thrilled to see Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers come to television again’.

‘Watching my characters brought to life on television is a real celebration,’ the author adds, while series writer and executive producer Steve Thompson calls it ‘a privilege and a thrill to have the opportunity to adapt these wonderful books for television’.

‘Elizabeth George’s iconic characters are greatly loved and her gripping stories are smart and ingenious,’ Thompson says.

No confirmation just yet on whether Lynley will be based on a specific novel by George or just her characters. Published in 1988, George’s first Inspector Lynley novel, A Great Deliverance, explores a twisted murder in the Yorkshire countryside, involving Roberta Teys who is found in her best dress in her old stone barn, axe in her lap beside her father’s headless corpse. It seems like an open-and-shut case, but when Lynley and Havers delve deeper into the local village’s history of secret scandals, all may not be as it seems.

The Cast

Vikings: Valhalla star Leo Suter is our new DI Tommy Lynley, opposite Ted Lasso’s Sofia Barclay as DS Barbara Havers. They are Lynley’s main event, though they are joined by a stellar cast of supporting characters.

The Lynley cast we know so far is as follows:

• Leo Suter as DI Tommy Lynley
• Sofia Barclay as DS Barbara Havers
• Daniel Mays as DCI Brian Nies
• Niamh Walsh as Helen Clyde
• Michael Workeye as Tony Bekele
• Joshua Sher as Simon St. James

Release Date

Lynley will launch on BBC One and BBC iPlayer this autumn, though a specific date is still TBC. Across the Atlantic, Lynley will air on BritBox.