P D James

Robert Donat played Mr. Chips romantic in 1939. Peter O'Toole played him fey in 1969. In 1987, Roy Marsden plays Chips "tough." The BBC's version of James Hilton's classic 1934 story, airing in three parts on PBS' "Masterpiece Theatre" starting Jan. 4, employs the actor best known to Americans as the dour detective Chief Inspector Dalgliesh, who unravels P. D. James' puzzles on "Mystery!"

Martin Shaw is the star of "George Gently," an excellent BBC detective series set in the 1960s in northeast England. Airing in Britain since 2007, it has shown locally this year on KCET, and its fourth season, comprising two feature-length episodes and joining three series already in release, has just been issued on DVD and Blu-ray by Acorn Media. A fifth has already been filmed. Based on but not particularly beholden to a series of crime novels by Alan Hunter and scripted by Peter Flannery (the movie "Funny Bones," the highly regarded and popular serial "Our Friends in the North")

*--* Southern California Rating FICTION *--* *--* 1 THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER AND CLAY by Michael Chabon (Picador: $15) Cousins in the comics biz 2 EMPIRE FALLS by Richard Russo (Vintage: $14.95) A warmhearted novel about working-class lives in Maine 3 FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury (Ballantine: $6.99) An alternate future when government makes books the enemy 4 BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWNUPS by Anne Tyler (Ballantine: $14.95) A mom gets another chance at love 5 DEATH IN HOLY ORDERS by P.D.