Any time a beloved series of books is translated to the screen, readers hold their breath. Will it do the books justice? Will too much be lost from or added to the stories? Will the lead actor be too short?

With DALGLIESH, Acorn TV has brought P.D. James’ beloved Detective Inspector-and-poet Adam Dalgliesh to the screen, and readers can release that breath they’re holding and settle in for an excellent watch.

Currently streaming (with new episodes released weekly), DALGLIESH comprises three two-part stories, each based on a novel: “Shroud for a Nightingale,” “The Black Tower,” and “A Taste for Death.” Each is set in the 1970s and takes place in the English countryside outside London. The setting is far from idyllic, though—it’s far more sinister than Midsomer. (Interesting side note: It was filmed in Northern Ireland.)

Dalgliesh is played by Bertie Carvel, who you might recognize from DOCTOR FOSTER; he has also had guest roles in loads of shows, from SHERLOCK to WAKING THE DEAD to DOCTOR WHO. He is as close to a perfect Dalgliesh as I can imagine, capturing the layers of the character without overplaying it. The script is owed kudos on this front too; it would have been easy to get lost in Dalgliesh’s dark and complex backstory, but this is handed as elegantly as I’ve seen it in any show.

Jeremy Irvine plays Dalgliesh’s 2IC, Charles Masterson, and he does so with a delightful level of gleeful evil. He balances the character’s malevolent motives with those benign, and this makes him more interesting than the vast majority of police procedural sidekicks.  

As good as the stars are, the ancillary characters in each story make them truly engaging. Each of them have their own stories, and the series manages to tell just enough of these stories to let us know what we need to and figure out the rest.

“Shroud for a Nightingale” opens quietly enough but takes off quickly when a student nurse dies during a demonstration of a simple medical procedure. Whether her death was accidental or deliberate isn’t a question for long, but the answer leads down a twisted—and fascinating—path.

“The Black Tower” and “A Taste for Death” are similarly engaging, leaving viewers with just one question: When can we see more?