And the Moonbeams Kiss the Sea

A maintenance worker is found dead inside the Bodleian Library, and when the police search his home they find stolen books. It is the kind of detail that could go either way, a sad little sideline or the heart of the matter, and the case does not make up its mind for a while. Then a popular art student turns up dead as well, and the two deaths start to look connected by something more than bad luck.

The investigation takes Lewis and Hathaway through the university's quieter corners, where books go missing and people notice but do not always speak up. The suspects gather around the dead man's life: Chapman, who worked alongside Sandra Walters, Nell Buckley, Philip Horton. Dr Hobson lends her professional eye, and the medical side is covered by Dr Stringer. It is the sort of case the show does well, dusty archives and sudden violence sharing the same frame.

But stolen volumes have a way of marking the people who handle them. The case keeps returning to paper trails and reading rooms, and it is the sort of mystery that could only happen in a city where the library is as busy as the high street.

Colin Dexter and Alan Plater wrote it, and Dan Reed directed. Darren Clarke plays Chapman, Haydn Gwynne is Sandra Walters, Emily Beecham plays Nell Buckley, Tom Riley takes Philip Horton, Sam Alexander plays Eric Jameson, Ian Burfield is Jeffreys and Neil Pearson appears as Dr Stringer. Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox lead as Lewis and Hathaway, with Clare Holman's Dr Hobson in support.

The title promises romance, and the episode delivers something sturdier: a proper puzzle with an institutional setting and a body count that earns its atmosphere. The Bodleian does its part, all that stone and silence making the violence feel sharper by contrast. A solid start to the season, and a reminder that the show's real subject is the city itself.