Deception on His Mind (31 Mar. 2003)

Sahlah is engaged to a young Pakistani man in an arranged marriage, but he ends up murdered as she is bearing the child of a local white man.

Director:

Tim Leandro

Writers:

Elizabeth George (novel), Valerie Windsor (screenplay)

Stars:

Matthew Wait, Sharon Small, Anjalee Patel

Cast

Episode cast overview, first billed only:
Matthew Wait	...	Gerry Devitt
Sharon Small	...	Barbara Havers
Anjalee Patel	...	Hadiyyah
Tanveer Ghani	...	Azhar Taymullah
Anjali Jay	...	Sahlah Malik (unconfirmed)
Saeed Jaffrey	...	Akram Malik
Sophie Walker	...	TV reporter
T.J. Ramini	...	Muneer Malik (as Tarek Ramini)
Emily Joyce	...	Emily Barlow
Demelza Randall	...	Rachel Winfield
Amita Dhiri	...	Yumna Malik
Terence Hillyer	...	Basil Treves
Nathaniel Parker	...	Thomas Lynley
Joe Shaw	...	Theo Shaw
Ronnie McCann	...	Trevor Ruddock

Storyline

Lynley and Havers investigate the death of Hatham Kureshi in the seaside village of Balford-le-nez. He was to marry Shala Malik, the daughter of a prominent businessman. The marriage was an arranged one but it turns out she was having an affair with a local man, Theo Shaw. She is also pregnant. Things are not going well in the Malik family and Shala's older brother Muneer is a particularly nasty character. There is also much tension in the community owing to what some claim was a previous incident where the police supposedly covered up the murder of a 16-year old Asian boy. When the police learn that Hatham was also gay, it adds a whole new angle to their investigation.

---

Plot Keywords:

pakistani | seaside | arranged marriage | collie dog | flare | 

---

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

---

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

31 March 2003 (UK)

Company Credits

Production Co:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), WGBH

Technical Specs

Runtime:

90 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Quotes

Barbara Havers: So it was an arranged marriage?
Shala Malik: Arranged marriage, yes, but not a forced marriage.

---

Connections

References West Side Story (1961)

User Reviews

It Falls Short

I was exposed to the Lynley series through the PBS series and was enchanted by its presentation. I decided to read the novel prior to viewing this program. This appears to have been a grave mistake. Elizabeth George's work is so thorough and rich. She builds the characters and their backgrounds with great care. This particular episode pales in comparison. Some of the casting is weak, especially the supporting cast. There appears to be little time spent (this was a bleak 90 minute episode, compared to Adam Dalgleish that go on for TWO 90 minute epys) on building these supporting characters so one could drink in their essences.

If the objective of this series is to 'replace' Inspector Morse, then it fails tremendously. The superficial approach in the main characters and their interfaces not only with each other but their paramours/friends, will keep this series from ever being at the level of the Morse series. It is a pale imitation, in my opinion. This could have been on the level of Morse (the novels indicate that this is so), but it falls short by hundreds of miles.

The fact that this particular episode deviates significantly from the main plot of the novel for the sake of cutting corners was quite disappointing. Why rush the production and skip over key points that form the characters? Other BBC productions have taken out the time, why not this one? The main characters are portrayed by good actors however; the secondary characters are weak and need beefing up.