Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox are back for a new season of Lewis.
Six new episodes of the long-running crime drama will see Whately and Fox reprising their roles as Detectives Robbie Lewis and James Hathaway, alongside Angela Griffin (Mount Pleasant) as Detective Sergeant Lizzie Maddox.
> Buy the complete Season 1-8 boxset on Amazon.
The arrival of new Chief Superintendent Joe Moody heralds a fresh dawn for Oxfordshire Police, although the high flyer soon clashes with Lewis over the latter’s more traditional approach to detective work. With Hobson contemplating a round-world trip to witness the birth of her niece’s baby, and the new boss piling on the pressure, will Robbie finally decide to call time on his policing career?
Meanwhile, Hathaway is forced to confront his past when his father is moved into a care home suffering from dementia. After years of avoiding the thorny issue of family ties, has James left it too late to be reunited with the man his father once was?
Episode 1: ‘One For Sorrow’ (Part One)
Tuesday 6 October 2015, 9pm
Episode 2: ‘One For Sorrow’ (Part Two)
Tuesday 13 October 2015, 9pm
Faced with a seemingly impossible task of identifying the remains of a body discovered in a well, Lewis has also got to contend with a new boss, Chief Superintendent Moody. The new chief is dubious as to Lewis’ motivation for coming out of retirement. Feeling not only unwanted but also under the microscope Lewis needs to solve the case in the hope of proving his worth.
Hathaway meanwhile is dealing with his own difficult situation as his estranged father, suffering with dementia, is placed into a care home. Going through his father’s belongings he realises that his dad, though absent from his son’s life, took an interest in him. This revelation causes Hathaway to feel tremendous guilt and in an attempt to avoid facing his father and his personal strife, Hathaway throws himself into his work.
Whilst the police are looking into the body in the well, it is the start of an exciting time for young avant-garde artist Talika Desai. An exhibition of her artwork, which heavily features anthropomorphic taxidermy, is opened, but the very next day her body is discovered. On first glance it looks like a tragic drugs overdose, but Hathaway and Lewis quickly recognise the tell tale signs of murder.
The resulting investigation takes Lewis, Hathaway and Maddox into the complex and murky worlds of social media, drugs, taxidermy, alternative art, the homeless East European community and even to the picturesque spires of the Oxford colleges.
Episode 3: ‘Magnum Opus’ (Part One)
Tuesday 20 October 2015, 9pm
Episode 4: ‘Magnum Opus’ (Part Two)
Tuesday 27 October 2015, 9pm
When College Dean Phil Beskin is found dead in local woodland, lured to his death following a heated pub debate and brutally bludgeoned to death with a rock, Lewis and Hathaway are called to investigate. After discovering an alchemic image purposefully left at the crime scene, denoting the first of four stages of a process called ‘The Great Work’ or ‘Magnum Opus,’ the team realise that there are three more murders to follow.
After finding an unusual tattoo on Phil’s body and two more murder victims with the exact same inking, Lewis and Hathaway discover that the tattoo signifies membership to a secret esoteric society that believes past sins can be forgiven by the literal sharing of guilt.
Before the fourth and final murder takes place, the team must uncover the guilty secret that their victims share, and the baffling link to alchemy, in order to learn the identity of not just the killer but the potential victim too.
Meanwhile Hathaway is struggling to accept his father’s illness and instead invests all his energies into finding out who he was before the dementia took hold.
Episode 5: ‘What Lies Tangled’ (Part One)
Tuesday 3 November 2015, 9pm
Episode 6: ‘What Lies Tangled’ (Part Two)
Tuesday 10 November 2015, 9pm
When an idyllic Oxford summer’s day is torn asunder by a gruesome parcel bomb, Lewis and Hathaway are called in to investigate. The victim of the attack is eminent mathematician Adam Capstone, a genius in the field of ‘Knot Theory’. Notoriously known as a man of carnal appetites, Adam was married to Elizabeth, a chemistry professor, but had numerous affairs, mainly with young pretty students.
As well as considering Elizabeth’s motives as the spurned wife, the team also investigate leads including a disgruntled student and the parents of a young woman who tragically committed suicide after her claims that Adam had raped her were not believed.
The investigation is sent into a spin when another bomb is discovered, this time at the home of Adam’s brother David, also a highly accomplished mathematician who had plans to sell his and his brother’s research to a pharmaceutical company.
For Lewis this is not just any case. With his six-month trip to New Zealand with Hobson fast approaching, Lewis fears that if he doesn’t impress Moody, he’ll never be rewarded with another contract on his return.
With relations and motives as tangled as the knots David and Adam have spent their lives unraveling, Lewis is in a race against time not just to find a killer, but to save his career and his relationship too.
> Buy the complete Season 1-8 boxset on Amazon.
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