Dalziel and Pascoe

RULING PASSION was one of the earliest novels in the Dalziel & Pascoe series. This episode is overall quite faithful to the book, and indeeds borrows some of the dialogue wholesale. However, the production team clearly wanted to make Peter Pascoe look good in this episode, and thus he gets to beat Supt. Backhouse to the punch (albeit just barely); this is not at all the case in the novel, in which the mild-mannered Backhouse out-detects a considerably chastened Pascoe on every front. Part of the backstory involving Davenant's relationship with Timothy Mansfield has vanished. Finally, for TV purposes, Pascoe's relationship with Ellie has been accelerated--they have not yet married in the novel--and Sgt. Wield, who would not be introduced until the following book, _A Pinch of Snuff_, is on the scene.