Original Sin

1 9 9 7 (UK)
3 x 50 minute episodes

Peverell Press – a respected publishing house with two hundred years of tradition, located in an elegant building called Innocent House on the banks of the Thames at Wapping – is taken over by new management. Gerard Etienne (James Wilby), the new yuppie Managing Director, wants to implement radical changes.

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard’s Commander Adam Dalgleish (Roy Marsden) is approached by his poet friend Gabriel Dauntsey (Ian Bannen) – coincidentally a board member of Peverell Press – to look into an anonymous poison pen letter he has received, urging him to take his own life. They are interrupted when employees discover the body of one of the firm’s top editors, Sonya Clements, in the firm’s archives room.

It has all of the hallmarks of suicide, and Dauntsey wonders if she, too, has been receiving letters.

When Gerard Etienne is subsequently found dead in an upstairs room at the Peverell offices, Dalgleish and DI Kate Miskin (Lizzy McInnerny) arrive to investigate. They are joined by DI Daniel Aron (Tim Dutton) on his first day as a member of the team.

While almost everyone at the firm may have had a reason to want him dead, Dalgliesh is convinced the reasons for Etienne’s death lie in his sinister past.

After author Esme Carling (a cracking cameo from Sylvia Syms) is found floating in the Thames, Dalgleish re-questions the woman’s 11-year-old neighbour, who admits Esme wasn’t home the night Gerard Etienne was killed. Others who may have had reason to want him dead have equally shaky alibis.

DI Daniel Aron finds a photo that links one of the Peverell Press employees to family deaths in Nazi concentration camps in World War II.

Unlike the previous PD James adaptations starring Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh (this was his ninth appearance in the role), which were all six-parters, Original Sin consisted of three episodes only.

Commander Adam Dalgliesh
Roy Marsden
DI Kate Miskin
Lizzy McInnerny
DI Daniel Aron
Tim Dutton
Gabriel Dauntsey
Ian Bannen
Gerard Etienne
James Wilby
Claudia Etienne
Cathryn Harrison
Frances Peverell
Amanda Root
Esme Carling
Sylvia Syms
James de Witt
Jonathan Coy
Miss Blackett
Carolyn Pickles
Jean-Philippe Etienne
Raymond Gérôme
Mrs Demery
Rowena Cooper
Mandy Price
Samantha Edmonds
Declan Cartwright
Eoin McCarthy
Daisy Reed
Brooke Kinsella
Agnes Clements
Gabrielle Lloyd
Mrs Reed
Vicky Murdock
Mr Aron
David de Keyser
Rupert Farlow
Jason Hall
Dr Wardle
David Dixon