This, the first episode of the eighth series opens back in 1942 with a couple of young ne'er-do-wells sneaking onto a ship intending to steal some whisky; they are spotted after they start syphoning it off and flee; one of them is violently sick. Cut forward to 1946 and a man is found dead in a London Park; the only clue being the address of Clayton Del Mar, the head of American oil company, found in his pocket. This is what gets MI5 and thus Foyle on the case as the Del Mar is playing a key role in securing British oil interests in Iran. Del Mar denies all knowledge of the dead man but Foyle is convinced he is lying. The dead man was a professor who had been working at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and it looks as if he may have established a link between Del Mar and a Nazi industrialist. The case will see Foyle heading first to Germany then east into Soviet occupied Poland while his driver Sam goes undercover at the Del Mar house as the person employed to read to Clayton Del Mar's father. Away from the case Sam's husband is not keen on her continuing to work while pregnant but must question his position when a constituent approaches him to complain that she has lost her job just because she is a woman.
This was another solid case for Foyle. There is a good mystery even though there is little doubt about who did it; the question is just why did he do it and will his importance mean he will get away with it. The story nicely combines a wartime story with the new post war politics where East and West are competing to gain access to Iranian oil and will go to great lengths to prevail. There is a good sense of danger; especially when Sam is in Del Mar's house and is coming under suspicion. The women's rights subplot did feel a bit tacked on although it was handled well enough and wasn't done in a black and white way the woman hadn't just lost her job to a random man; she lost it to the man who had the job before he'd been conscripted to fight in the war. The acting was solid; Michael Kitchen is Christopher Foyle and the rest of the cast were good too; although I was surprised that an actual American didn't play Clayton Del Mar not that there was anything wrong with Nigel Lindsay's performance. Over all a good start to the season.
This was another solid case for Foyle. There is a good mystery even though there is little doubt about who did it; the question is just why did he do it and will his importance mean he will get away with it. The story nicely combines a wartime story with the new post war politics where East and West are competing to gain access to Iranian oil and will go to great lengths to prevail. There is a good sense of danger; especially when Sam is in Del Mar's house and is coming under suspicion. The women's rights subplot did feel a bit tacked on although it was handled well enough and wasn't done in a black and white way the woman hadn't just lost her job to a random man; she lost it to the man who had the job before he'd been conscripted to fight in the war. The acting was solid; Michael Kitchen is Christopher Foyle and the rest of the cast were good too; although I was surprised that an actual American didn't play Clayton Del Mar not that there was anything wrong with Nigel Lindsay's performance. Over all a good start to the season.