If you are a Wallander, Morse or Prime Suspect (Helen Mirren) fan, you'll enjoy this set of longer mysteries based on Ann Cleeves' mystery novels featuring detective Vera Stanhope. Like her predecessors, Vera's a driven and somewhat unhappy figure. Her job is to seek justice not "to make people happy" as she notes in one episode. She's humorous and lovingly chastises her sidekick, as Morse does. Vera, the series, has great camerawork, as Wallander does. Not Sweden, but what is it about gloomy Northumberland? George Gently is filmed in part there also. Looking forward to more...

And why not adapt Cleeves' Jimmy Perez character too? He's another great character and setting. Is anyone listening there in tv land?

In the meantime, checkout Ann Cleeves' novels.

Hormah, the outreach librarian at Louise Riley recommended North and South, the British mini-series starring Richard Armitage (the best looking spy from the recent seasons of tv series MI-5).

Based on Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, it's the now classic Victorian scenario of misunderstanding and stubbornness ending in romance (remind anyone of Austen's Pride and Prejudice?). A minister's daughter relocates to Milton, an industrial town rife with poverty and conflict. Gaskell herself lived in Manchester and was married to a minister and was best known in her time for her biography of Charlotte Bronte (see the Britannica Encyclopedia in our E-library).

We also have the adaptation of Gaskell's Wives and Daughters--a little more comic but it also deals with making choices about how to live and with whom. We also have a popular adaptation of Gaskell's Cranford, starring Judi Dench, which Hormah also recommended.