Radio Times: Review by:; David Butcher

Oxford in the morning sunshine, the mist hovering over high walls. Students are punting on the river. A group of well-meaning folk in wellies set off to dig up rhododendrons in the woods. Hang on, that’s a rash thing to do in the opening titles of a Lewis, isn’t it? Won’t they find a – yup, there it is, a body that turns out to be, as you’d expect, a brutally murdered academic.

It’s the start of a case that gets our returning hero in quite a temper. But I love Lewis’s tetchiness, getting cross about anything remotely intellectual because it’s all “a load of old cobblers”, while sidekick DS Hathaway knows everything about everything – Lewis Carroll, botany, secret societies, all of which are involved. As is a young botanist who catches the sergeant’s eye...

They’re an increasingly enjoyable pairing, Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox, and it’s a typically absorbing mystery, with a sad side-plot touching on bereavement – something Lewis knows all about.

About this programme

1/4. The detective investigates after a botanist accidentally unearths the body of a recently buried professor who was fixated upon solving a seemingly impossible riddle by Lewis Carroll. The victim had a long-standing rivalry with his brother - giving Lewis and Hathaway an obvious suspect - but the case is hindered by the mind games of two students who seem intent on causing trouble in their quest to gain admittance to a mysterious club. Guest starring Celia Imrie (Titanic) and James Fleet (The Vicar of Dibley), with Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox.