Episodes based on the Dangerous Davies novels by Leslie Thomas.

Special features of these DVDs: Leslie Thomas bio and booklist ; photo gallery ; cast filmographies ; widescreen presentation ; Dolby Digital ; scene selection.

Peter Davison, Sean Hughes, Emma Amos.

Originally broadcast by ITV1 in 2004.

Underdog detective 'Dangerous' Davies toils at a small London police station, where his slicker colleagues taunt him and his boss calls him the last detective he would put on a big case. That makes it all the sweeter when he cracks the big ones anyway.

Christine: When wealthy would-be painter Maurice Leyman dies drunk in a fire while shut up in his studio, Davies faces a classic "locked-door mystery." The victim's strangely cool widow certainly had the means and the motive. But the ever-plodding Davies refuses to settle for easy answers.

The long bank holiday: A spate of computer thefts from government offices, a possible suicide under the wheels of a high-speed train, an absconded lifer on the loose, and a grisly trove of human bones in a garden all conspire to keep Davies on the job during a long Easter weekend.

Benefit to mankind: With a history of depression, a blood-stream full of booze, and a high-pressure job in medical research, Henry Winton seems like an open-and-shut suicide case after his body turns up in the canal. But the more Davies looks at SwanMed, the less he likes --particularly when Winton's pretty young co-worker goes missing.

Dangerous and the lonely hearts: Brought to the station after nicking some sweets, a waifish Eastern European girl refuses to give even her name. What starts out as a simple case of shoplifting turns into apparent murder, however, after Davies finds the girl's mother strangled. The trail leads to some surprising suspects from a video matchmaking service.

Not rated.

DVD.