Thanks to the show "Jonathan Creek," I became a fan of Caroline Quentin. She stars in "Blue Murder," a British series about a DCI Janine Lewis (Quentin) as she works police cases and deals with her chaotic private life as not only a single mom, but the mother of a new baby. The series begins when she's pregnant with her last child, and her husband Pete (Joe Tucker) has already taken off with another woman, though he and Janine haven't actually gotten a divorce. Fortunately, at least for the first years of the series, Tom is around to babysit. In the last year he and his wife move to Spain.Janine's team consists of Ian Kelsey (Richard Mayne), with whom she has an on again/off again relationship, DS Butchers (Paul Laughlin) and DS Shap (Nicholas Murchie), all of whom create very full characters and make a good ensemble. The cases are interesting and make for good drama.I don't think the ensemble work comes anywhere near "NCIS" or "The Closer" but over time, we get to know the team. The team doesn't have the humor and the characters don't have the individual focus of the above-mentioned shows; the emphasis is very much on its star, her family, and to a lesser extent Ian.Really enjoyable and well-acted; sorry this didn't go longer, but what there was, was very good.

Just streamed the series on Netflix over the weekend...quite enjoyed it. They put together a very good ensemble cast that played off one another rather well throughout the 5 seasons. Sure there were some hiccups now and again...characters appearing then vanishing without notice or trace...lol...and on a police drama too ;P. It gives a more realistic view of the police that make up the squads in the UK, 'real' people with 'real' lives mucking up the works and managing somehow to keep all the balls in the air. DCI Lewis is as 'real' as it gets being a full time cop and mom...never quite getting it all right...but life is messy and this drama really brings home that reality. The story lines played out as well as any drama on TV British or US. Sorry to see it didn't survive a while longer...I grew to really like the characters and would have liked to see where they got on to. :) Well worth a watch if you like police dramas...Brits got this spot on I think.

"Blue Murder" is a good, if not phenomenal, British police series which ran from 2003 to 2009 (5 seasons all in all). The main character is Detective Chief Inspector Janine Lewis, of the Manchester Police, who has a messy home life (separated from her husband, she's raising her 4 kids on her own) and a busy career (she is in charge of murder investigations). The rest of her team consists of Detectives Richard, Butchers, Shap, and others who come and go as the series moves on; the regulars make a good team, and all the men respect their female boss. The Manchester locations give this series a feeling of freshness, the characters are all believable and well-played (I think Nicholas Murchie may be the best as the cynical Shap), and the cases themselves are 90% of the time unpredictable and engaging. By the 5th season, the series does start to feel a bit formulaic, however the very last episode, the two-parter "Private Sins", suggests some ways that might have shaken up the formula, if the series had been allowed to continue for a 6th season. My favorite episode, and a great representative of how complex and twisted the mysteries could get, is "Up In Smoke" from Season 2. Some episodes have terrific titles - how can you not love "Not A Matter Of Life And Death"? One minor (?) complaint, though: some supporting characters are built up as important, then disappear without a trace.