The BEST episodes written by Russell Lewis

#1 - Degüello

Endeavour - Season 6 - Episode 4

When a librarian is gruesomely murdered at the Bodleian, Endeavour and Thursday have little to go on besides a set of muddy boot prints. With the two main suspects having their own motives for killing the librarian, Endeavour digs deeper into their backgrounds, tracking a trail that appears to connect to seemingly innocent college bequest.

#2 - Pylon

Endeavour - Season 6 - Episode 1

The murder of a schoolgirl brings Endeavour back to Oxford. When he refuses to accept the main suspect's guilt, he has to uncover the truth before it's too late

#3 - Confection

Endeavour - Season 6 - Episode 3

The murder of a chocolate factory owner during a local hunt leads Endeavour to the sleepy village of Chigton Green. When he learns of a vicious campaign of gossip and rumour, it seems likely that two murders are connected. One of the targets, a beautiful, single mother, captures Endeavour's attention, giving him food for thought about the future.

#4 - A Morbid Taste for Bones

Cadfael - Season 2 - Episode 3

The monks of Shrewsbury go to Wales to recover the bones of St Winifred. But their attempted bribery of the Welsh puts them at odds with the local residents - and when the local landowner is found murdered, the monks are regarded as prime suspects.

#5 - Apollo

Endeavour - Season 6 - Episode 2

As the highly-anticipated moon landings of Apollo 11 draw near, Endeavour finds himself investigating the death of a promising young astrophysicist and his girlfriend. Their deaths seeming to be a result of a tragic car accident on first inspection, with the clues pointing to foul play, Endeavour enlists the help of an injured Thursday to uncover the truth.

#6 - Food Chain, Episode Three

Murphy's Law (2001) - Season 5 - Episode 3

Now that Baker knows Murphy is a cop, he must race against the clock to find Kim before her secret is revealed too. However, local Chief Superintendent Bowry cares less about Kim's life and more about his own reputation and funding, and Murphy is forced to take desperate measures in his hunt for his missing friend.

#7 - Food Chain, Episode One

Murphy's Law (2001) - Season 5 - Episode 1

Murphy is working as a cover officer for an old friend, Mitch, and his fellow undercover officer, Kim. However, there are tensions between the two undercover officers and when they go missing Murphy is determined to find them.

#8 - Food Chain, Episode Two

Murphy's Law (2001) - Season 5 - Episode 2

With Mitch dead and Kim still missing, it's time for a heavily guilty Murphy to go undercover in the hope of finding Kim before it's too late. What awaits him is a world of people trafficking, drug smuggling and unwilling prostitution.

#9 - Dangerous and the Lonely Hearts

The Last Detective - Season 2 - Episode 4

Dangerous Davies is on the trail of the killer of an Albanian refugee, and his search leads him to a dating agency – where one of the clients is someone he knows only too well.

#10 - Trove

Endeavour - Season 2 - Episode 1

Returning from sick leave, Morse investigates a suspicious suicide, a missing girl, and the theft of a Trove (ancient artifacts). A beauty pageant and local by-election draw Morse into disagreement with Inspector Thursday and Superintendent Bright when he believes they are connected to the crimes despite the evidence. A missing notebook and a Freemasonry lodge hamper the investigation.

#11 - The Short Straw

The Bill - Season 9 - Episode 36

When her car breaks down on the way to the station, DC Viv Martella misses an important CID briefing about an obbo on a suspected armed robbery, and is furious when she is taken off the case by DI Frank Burnside. As CID and SO19 wait outside the target, Martella and PC Tony Stamp follow up a simple case to arrest a suspected bag snatcher. As they wait outside the suspect's house, a van pulls up, obscuring their view. Having missed the briefing, Martella fails to recognise the van's occupants as the armed robbers, and when she approaches their van she is shot and killed. Stamp is wounded, but manages to give a description of the van which is spotted by a traffic police motorcycle. As the India 99 police helicopter and SO19 cars pursue Martella's killers across London, PC Loxton and WPC Ackland disobey Ch. Insp. Cato's orders and pursue the suspect vehicle in the Area Car. The vehicle hits a bulldozer and explodes, killing all inside.

#12 - Quartet

Endeavour - Season 5 - Episode 5

An assassination attempt at an international sporting event opens a new case for Endeavour and Thursday, but their investigation is quickly brought to an unexpected end.

#13 - Nocturne

Endeavour - Season 2 - Episode 2

World Cup fever is gripping the country, as Argentina battle it out against England in the quarter finals. At an Oxford museum, some schoolgirls take a tour of the museum. In a closed-off enclave, Adrian Weiss, a specialist in heraldry and genealogy, is murdered, leading Morse to delve into the murders, 100 years previously, of a family who lived in the building the schoolgirls now occupy.

#14 - Ride

Endeavour - Season 3 - Episode 1

Jeannie Hearne is spirited away in the middle of the night with no explanation. Her body is found the next day in the countryside, alerting the attention of the Oxford City Police. Endeavour may be suspended, but with the case being so close to his home, he begins an investigation of his own.

#15 - The Even Chance (aka The Duel)

Hornblower - Season 1 - Episode 1

The Hornblower series is based on C.S. Forester's classic maritime adventures - the story of one young man's struggle to become a leader of men. Set against the back drop of the 18th century Anglo-French wars, the bloodiest time in British naval history. Spithead, Portsmouth, 1794. Under thundery skies and in lashing rain, a 17 year old midshipman takes the first tentative steps of his naval career.

#16 - Neverland

Endeavour - Season 2 - Episode 4

A boy, with a brutal father, is reported missing from his home. The body of a journalist is found on a railway line and within days an escaped convict, with months of his sentence remaining, is found dead. The two men have connections with Blenheim Vale, a disused correctional facility for boys, soon to be redeveloped as a new police headquarters in a reorganization of the local forces. Thursday and Morse's investigation lead to a property developer and corruption in high places including missing police evidence in Morse's last three investigations.

#17 - Coda

Endeavour - Season 3 - Episode 4

Endeavour, recruited by his old college mentor Felix Lorimer to look into the safety of his estranged younger wife Nina, contemplates his police career as well as having to contend with unexpected strife in his personal life. Meanwhile, the murder of Cedric Clissold - a manager with a line in fashion - stirs up old gangland grudges as a notorious crime family appear to be in the frame as prime suspects.

#18 - Old, Unhappy, Far Off Things

Lewis - Season 5 - Episode 1

Oxford's last all-female college is holding a reunion party to say goodbye to one of its most popular professors. After a guest is found murdered, Lewis believes the killing is connected to an attack that happened at the same building 10 years ago. He turns to his former DS, Alison McLennan, to help him with the case but it ends up taking a new twist after two more bodies turn up.

#19 - Reputation

Lewis - Season 1 - Episode 1

Five years after his friend and mentor's death, Lewis - now promoted to position of inspector - returns to the city of Oxford after working on the British Virgin Islands. Even before he has the chance to get home and settle in, he and his new, vastly younger partner DS Hathaway are called to a crime scene to help investigate the murder of an American college student. It is soon discovered that one of the suspects has had past dealings with the late Inspector Morse.

#20 - Sharpe's Peril (2)

Sharpe - Season 7 - Episode 2

#21 - Sharpe's Battle

Sharpe - Season 3 - Episode 2

Sept 1813 - While in the Spanish hills, Sharpe and his men come across a scene of devastation in the town of Casa Antiga. The town has been sacked by the fearsome French commander, Brigadier General Guy Loup and his Wolf brigade. Perkins rescues a young woman from two of Loup's soldiers and they are arrested. When Loup rides into town demanding they be released, Sharpe refuses and has them executed in front of him. Loup vows revenge. Back at camp, Wellington gives Sharpe command of the Royal Irish Company and orders him to knock them into shape.

#22 - Sharpe's Challenge (1)

Sharpe - Season 6 - Episode 1

In 1817 -- two years after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo -- the Duke of Wellington sends Sharpe to India to check out an Indian prince who appears to threaten British interests. The mission becomes dangerous when a general's daughter is kidnapped and Sharpe must find her.

#23 - Harvest

Endeavour - Season 4 - Episode 4

When a body is found in a marshland outside of Oxford, everyone assumes they are the remains of an Oxford botanist who mysteriously disappeared near the site five years earlier.

#24 - The Pale Horse

Agatha Christie's Marple - Season 5 - Episode 1

Miss Marple’s old friend Father Gorman is brutally murdered after visiting the dying Mrs Davis. When Miss Marple receives a mysterious list of names through the post, sent by Gorman moments before his death, she heads to London to investigate. Detective Inspector Lejeune and Police Surgeon Edward Kerrigan puzzle over the killing. But when Lejeune dismisses Marple’s list she is determined to find justice for her friend.

#25 - The Virgin in the Ice

Cadfael - Season 2 - Episode 1

Cadfael's novice, Brother Oswin, is found close to death, babbling about a woman. When a nun is found raped, murdered and encased in the ice of a frozen stream, Oswin is accused of murder. Cadfael tracks the nun's companion, Ermina Hugonin, and sets out to prove Oswin's innocence.

#26 - Fearful Symmetry

Lewis - Season 6 - Episode 3

Lewis and Hathaway investigate the murder of a baby-sitter, and uncover a swingers' network. The detectives must establish whether the girl's fate is connected to her time spent in a children's home, or whether she was an unintended victim.

#27 - Willesden Confidential

The Last Detective - Season 3 - Episode 4

Davies investigates the spectacular death of stock car driver Geoff Fallon, and discovers that the motive may lie closer to home than he cares to admit.

#28 - The Long Bank Holiday

The Last Detective - Season 2 - Episode 2

Davies makes a gruesome discovery when he is called in to settle a dispute between neighbours over a leylandii hedge. The hapless detective is then called away to deal with a suspected suicide.

#29 - Game

Endeavour - Season 4 - Episode 1

The ‘white heat' of technology takes centre stage in the first film, as Lovelace College is taken over by a team of research scientists who are developing a ‘thinking' machine to equal and even outstrip the capabilities of man's own mind. As a Russian academic prepares to do battle with the Joint Computing Nexus (JCN or Jason for short) in a game of chess, the Cold War is played out on a chequered field and Endeavour and Thursday are plunged into their most perilous, baffling and darkly terrifying case to date. Throwing himself into his work to mask the heartache of Joan's departure, Endeavour is quickly consumed by his duties when one of the research team is found drowned near Magdalen Bridge. Assuming it to be a suicide on first inspection, the circumstances become more suspicious when two more victims are also found drowned nearby in East Cowley Baths. Is there more to the deaths than meets the eye?

#30 - Sharpe's Peril (1)

Sharpe - Season 7 - Episode 1

It's India, 1818, and Lt Col Richard Sharpe and Sergeant Major Patrick Harper are travelling across India, escorting the beautiful Marie-Angelique Bonnet to meet her fiancée. While in bandit-plagued badlands, they come across the very dregs of the Crown's troops; an ill disciplined, rag-tag unit led by boy soldier Beauclare. As Sharpe and company sit down to have dinner with their hosts, the camp comes under attack by the notorious bandit Chitu. As the dust settles, it becomes apparent there have been many casualties and Sharpe realises that he is the only person now capable of getting this wagon train to the safety of the next army garrison. Little does Sharpe know that the adventure has only just begun and that he has inadvertently stumbled across a massive opium trafficking ring...

#31 - Sway

Endeavour - Season 2 - Episode 3

Bonfire Night is just around the corner and housewife Vivienne Haldane is found strangled with a silk stocking in her own home is the third death in a month. All the women were married, alone and their wedding rings missing. Tracing the stockings to the sole supplier, Burridges department store, and a number of suspects and for Inspector Thursday a face from the past he thought was dead leading to complications in his family life and with Morse.

#32 - The Sanctuary Sparrow

Cadfael - Season 1 - Episode 2

When Shrewsbury's goldsmith is robbed and left for dead, the locals launch a witch-hunt. Pursued by the mob, the prime suspect, a young juggler who performed at the wedding of the goldsmith's son, seeks sanctuary at the Abbey. But as Cadfael investigates, a second body is found floating in the River Severn.

#33 - Monk's Hood

Cadfael - Season 1 - Episode 4

A rich landowner cuts his stepson out of his will to leave his fortune to Shrewsbury Abbey, and is found poisoned. When Cadfael is called in to investigate, he is shocked to find that the dead man's wife is his own childhood sweetheart, whom he has not seen for forty years.

#34 - The Raven in the Foregate

Cadfael - Season 3 - Episode 3

Cadfael is on a double murder hunt following the deaths of a pregnant girl and the priest who refused to take her confession.

#35 - Canticle

Endeavour - Season 4 - Episode 2

The so called ‘permissive society' comes under the spotlight as Endeavour is tasked with protecting conservative social activist, Joy Pettybon, after she receives a death threat while visiting Oxford to promote her ‘Keep Britain Decent' campaign. Also staying near Oxford and recording their new album are a band called The Wildwood and their manager Ralph Spender, who is desperate to maintain their squeaky-clean image in the media spotlight. However, their harmony is disrupted when the body of local brickie, Barry Finch, is discovered in the middle of Oxford and it transpires that Finch was working at Maplewick Hall, where they band are staying, before he died. Delving into the social revolution of the time, Endeavour finds himself caught in the crossfire of bitter liberalising forces and deep reactionary conservatism both fighting for the consciences of the British people in 1967. And in this collision of two worlds, Endeavour must explore all avenues before more killings occur.

#36 - Icarus

Endeavour - Season 5 - Episode 6

After the mysterious disappearance of a teacher, Endeavour finds himself investigating the dark and secret world of a public school.

#37 - Lazaretto

Endeavour - Season 4 - Episode 3

Whispers that Cowley General contains a cursed ward - and a seemingly innocuous death - set off a chain of events that lead Endeavour to investigate the dark depths of the hospital. While there, he is forced to confront his own ghosts as he discovers a chilling secret.

#38 - One Corpse Too Many

Cadfael - Season 1 - Episode 1

Brother Cadfael has settled down to a quiet religious life at Shrewsbury Abbey after an adventurous, and far from monastic, youth. But when he uncovers a murder, he turns detective to solve the crime.

#39 - They Also Serve

The Bill - Season 7 - Episode 72

The relief is reserve troops for a demonstration. It is very boring waiting on waste ground. At a meal break, Delia, Norika and June find a distressed probationer in the toilets. Tempers are getting strained. Young is starting to question why he is still on the job. On the way back to the station the van is attacked by youths with sticks and petrol bombs. All the windows are broken and someone's arm catches fire.

#40 - Sharpe's Challenge (2)

Sharpe - Season 6 - Episode 2

The adventures of Sharpe and Harper in India, 1817, continue with the rescue of Miss Celia Burroughs from a dangerous Indian prince. Meanwhile, Sharpe has old scores to be settled with the bully Simmerson.

#41 - Prey

Endeavour - Season 3 - Episode 3

Early June 1967. A missing persons case - that of Danish au pair INGRID HJORT - proves far from routine, pulling ENDEAVOUR into the dueling worlds of Oxford scientific academia, the city's vast parks, Night School and the untamed wilderness of the Oxfordshire countryside.

#42 - Arcadia

Endeavour - Season 3 - Episode 2

April 1967. As spring blooms, the death of artist Simon Hallward in a horrendous house-fire leaves Oxford City Police baffled as to the cause of the blaze. When a young housewife dies, seemingly of the same mysterious ’tummy bug’ that has seen half of Chief Superintendent Bright’s men go on Sick Leave, DC Endeavour Morse’s investigation leads him to an inner-city supermarket, Richardson’s, owned by a wealthy family of the same name, descended from a line of Quakers.

#43 - Instruments of Justice

Taggart - Season 10 - Episode 1

Sean Brady has turned Queen's evidence against crime boss McLintock. On the way to court, his car is ambushed and a policeman is left seriously injured. Brady escapes and flees, leaving the prosecutor with a hole in his case against McLintock. DCI Taggart falls under suspicion because he authorized the route and Internal Affairs takes a hard-edged line.

#44 - Episode 3

Spooks - Season 7 - Episode 3

With Lucas back within MI5 he reveals that the Russians interrogated him about Operation Sugar Horse, the most secret ongoing spy operation MI5 ever had. If the Russians know about it, then MI5 has a very high level mole. Harry seeks out his mentor, The Spycatcher, to help him find the mole. Ben is undercover with an Al-Qaeda cell; they are planning to bomb London and what looks like a dry run unexpectedly turns live.

#45 - Caught Napping

The Bill - Season 7 - Episode 31

The Metropolitan Police Serious Crimes Squad sweep into Sun Hill and commandeer the station's briefing room, setting a few noses out of joint in the process. They are there to investigate the murder of a police informant, who at the time of his death was under the protection of Sun Hill CID. DI Burnside and DS Roach come to blows when Roach refuses to share the blame for withdrawing officers from the safe house, and accuses Burnside of corruption.

#46 - Forget-Me-Not

The Bill - Season 6 - Episode 77

A D.S. from the Drug squad is looking for the D.C.I. Cathy recognises him. He is interested in Cathy and follows her on her beat as she checks a domestic. He turns out to be her ex-husband who wants her back. The wife involved in the domestic had been beaten regularly before she stabbed her husband. Quinnan is mouthing off in the canteen and Cathy takes offense. Later Dave wants to patch things up with her. When Dave goes to the hospital he comes across Cathy being threatened by her ex who takes a swing at Dave.

#47 - The Indelible Stain

Lewis - Season 6 - Episode 4

A visiting professor is found strangled after delivering a controversial lecture. Lewis and Hathaway have no shortage of suspects, but when one of them is also murdered, her affair with a married professor of Criminology takes the investigation in another direction.

#48 - Open to Offers

The Bill - Season 8 - Episode 80

Monroe and the relief go to a pub where some men are damaging it. One of the men tries to blackmail Dave over some moonlighting Dave did to get off the charge. Monroe thinks the men might be involved in protection. Dave tells both Sgts Boyden and Maitland who advises him to tell Monroe. Dave asks Barry's advice as Fed Rep. Barry asks Reg's advice as he was previous Fed Rep.

#49 - Muse

Endeavour - Season 5 - Episode 1

The newly promoted Detective Sergeant Morse investigates when a famous international thief tries to steal a Faberge egg from an auction. The case leads to the gruesome murders of an academic and a gangster, and Morse is convinced the deaths are the work of the same man. As he struggles with his new responsibilities, he finds himself forced to mentor a younger partner.

#50 - Passenger

Endeavour - Season 5 - Episode 3

The railway takes centre stage as Endeavour investigates the disappearance of a local woman - with initial fears linking it to the unsolved murder of a teenager, killed several years earlier. Endeavour puts the missing woman's last known movements under scrutiny, while Thursday is absorbed in the investigation of a lorry hijack which he suspects is linked to local gangster Eddie Nero. The murder investigation takes a surprising turn when a woman's body is discovered, but Endeavour notices anomalies at the murder scene which point away from the cold case theory. Meanwhile, Cowley is disrupted by the arrival of two rough-and-ready burglary squad officers, also investigating the lorry hijack, who commandeer Fancy for their plans. Soon stumbling on a potential informant, Fancy is thwarted when his new lead is violently killed. The discovery of another body uncovers a clue that blows the case of the missing woman wide open - and leads to an unlikely culprit.