Counter Culture Blues

Lewis answers what is supposed to be a noise complaint and finds himself face to face with a ghost. The rock singer at the centre of the ruckus is a man he once greatly admired, believed drowned for years. It is hardly a happy reunion: the investigation soon turns to the body of a teenage boy, found elsewhere but traced to the gates of the singer's estate, run over repeatedly by a vehicle.

The dead boy's connection to the singer's circle is immediate and damning. Lewis has to hold onto his old affection for the man while following the evidence into the orbit of the band and its hangers-on. It is a story about faded glory and the people who get crushed in its wake, and the melancholy suits the show. There is a particular sadness in watching Lewis confront the idea of a hero and find the reality.

But the band members protect each other out of habit long after there is anything worth protecting, and Lewis has to peel those loyalties apart one at a time. The music world gives the episode its best material, all faded glamour and resentment curdled by the years.

Colin Dexter, Nick Dear and Guy Andrews wrote it, and Bill Anderson directed. Joanna Lumley takes the significant role of Esmé Ford, David Hayman plays Richie Maguire, Daniel Kaluuya is Declan, Perdita Weeks plays Kitten, Paul Panting takes Craig Bell, Tom Kane plays Lucas, Nick Malinowski is Reverend Armstrong and Trevor Byfield appears as Bone. Kevin Whately and Laurence Fox lead as Lewis and Hathaway.

The episode is moody in the best sense, steeped in local colour and the specific ache of seeing your youthful idols up close. The murder is grim, but the real subject is disappointment, and the show plays it without sentimentality. A rock star's comeback, it turns out, can be a dangerous thing to witness.