User Reviews

No one who witnessed it can get the vision of Gideon Frane's burning body as he jumped into a lake out of his or her mind. And if, like Vera and the coroner, you didn't see it, you keep imagining it.

Vera and Joe set out to learn who lit the match, but it turns out that Gideon wasn't killed that way at all. He was poisoned with atropine, and it drove him mad, he tripped on an oil lamp and set himself on fire. So who poisoned him? In investigating Gideon's history, they come up with some suspects. There's Kit, a gay hairdresser friend of Gideon's ex-girlfriend Izzy, who was being stalked by Gideon. His ex-headmistress Vivienne Ripman states that Frane was part of a sort of school "in" crowd; one girlfriend attempted suicide and disappeared and another member, Jamie, became a drug addict. Another ex, Amanda, now a nun, comes forward.

When Jamie is located, he offers Vera a drink, and both of them are poisoned but thankfully not killed.

Vera's flummoxed. What is all this about? Gideon poisoned and goes mad. Jamie, a drug addict living in a squalor, comes from a wealthy family, has given away his money, and is now poisoned himself. Amanda has become a nun.

It's a mystery only Vera can solve.

Really good story, with Brenda Blethyn in top form as no-muss no-fuss Vera, who becomes emotional upon meeting an old teacher, Sr. Benedict, and tries to break out of the hospital after her poisoning before she's ready.

Always some sadness with these stories. Vera's loneliness, isolation and the stark countryside rule.

A continued message into season three is themed of the stark loneliness of the main character Vera, efficient as she is in solving the crimes, there is the ever-present bleakness of her personal life, shown accurately by her home isolated in the countryside, the use of liquor, an obvious diet of food not for the mature woman. The remoteness of the countryside adds to the dark theme as we see often when her vehicle travels to locations of interest. The charm of the entire series is the excellent acting by Ms. Blethyn and cast, together with the always complicated mysteries involving a death or deaths. There are plenty of guest characters to heighten the mystique adding to the pursuance of the guilty parties by DCI Stanhope. Vera's support is exceptional with DS Joe Ashworth, pathologist Billy Cartwright and DC Kenny Lockhart all helping with the ultimate resolution.

Episode three of the third season begins with a death and ends with the forecasting of another; the perpetrator's own demise will come due to natural causes way before his murder trial. The story is expertly written, intertwining plot twists with the usual related past references to Vera's life and her visioning the case at hand.

The victim was a headstrong individual not taking no for an answer. He had hounded one person to his death and years later, was harassing another individual. Vera and team weed through the events to learn the killer's identity, confronting him at the end of the program. This is another excellent story in the series, and it is worth watching in its entirety.

At the end of this series it turns out that there was not a quarrel or a fight when Gideon was murdered. He was, so called, alone up there, confused by the atropine and set himself on fire and he jumped into the water. Though, when you do watch the scene when he jumps into the water you do see a person standing up there, you see him ( or her) moving a little bit. You can clearly see somebody standing there in a green or yellowlike trousers. So in fact he was not alone, there was somebody standing there in the dark, right next him, just before he jumped in the water. Did they alter the story later on or were they to careless when they were shooting the scene?Just but your screen om hold around the moment that you hear him screaming for help.