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
