Sparring Investigators on ‘Mystery!’

It’s a match made in headquarters, not in heaven.

Inspector Thomas Lynley, the eighth earl of Asherton, is a rich, cynical rake--part Marlowe, part Gatsby. Sgt. Barbara Havers is a brusque, resentful product of the working class--a cockney, female Andy Sipowicz.

After meeting her he mutters, “For once the film is more exciting than the trailer. The woman is a minefield.�

When these sleuths team up to investigate a decapitation on a bleak Yorkshire farm, the immediate mystery is whether they can keep from killing each other long enough to solve the crime at hand.

Welcome to “The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Great Deliverance,� a droll two-part “Mystery!� airing back-to-back from 9 to midnight tonight on KCET. The miniseries was adapted by Lizzie Mickery from Elizabeth George’s bestseller and directed by Richard Laxton.

Disdain, it turns out, is the reaction New Scotland Yard was looking for in pairing Lynley (a suave Nathaniel Parker) with Havers (a simmering Sharon Small). Both are outcasts in their own ways from the regular guys on the force, and the brass wouldn’t mind seeing a blow-up that gets the pair booted.

Despite this dynamite setup, “A Great Deliverance� is imperfect, like the crime it depicts. Even “Mystery!� fans who usually find themselves clueless probably can figure out the straightforward whodunit before intermission.

But the true fun comes from watching the tantalizingly slow evolution of an oddly effective partnership. When Lynley at one point suggests a peacemaking chat, Havers snaps back in Dennis Franz fashion, “I’m a more ‘do’ and less ‘talk’ sort of person,� and the tension that counts is cranked up another notch.