Harry Potter fans eagerly awaiting a second film have nothing on Inspector Lynley addicts: It's been 14 years since the first mystery was published and they haven't seen one scrap of celluloid. Until now.

        A Great Deliverance, which introduced author Elizabeth George and her intricate, psychologically intense detective novels, is finally coming to American television.

        The two-part series from Britain's BBC and PBS' WGBH-TV in Boston airs today and next Monday (9 p.m., Channels 48, 54), on PBS' Mystery! series.

        The gang's all here, including sexy, aristocratic Thomas Lynley of Scotland Yard; Detective Sgt. Barbara Havers, his sad sack partner from the other side of the tracks, and their circle of family, friends and former and future lovers, not to mention killer and victim.

        The program, one of five Lynley mysteries filmed by the BBC, already aired in Britain. The other four are expected to reach PBS in summer 2003.

        In A Great Deliverance, a Yorkshire farmer has been found decapitated with his blood-spattered, suddenly mute daughter nearby. The whodunit is intertwined with a how-are-they-feeling, especially the emotionally wounded Lynley — his best friend has just wed his old flame.

        Ms. George fans will have to cope with some plot changes (and certain casting decisions; more on that later) but her book's intelligent tone and unsparing darkness are captured in this satisfying production.

        We're left, however, with the resounding mystery of why it took so long to film Ms. George's hugely popular works, which publisher Bantam says have sold more than 8 million copies. Turns out the culprit is the author herself — but, she insists, with good reason.

        Ms. George's mysteries are as stepped in English tradition and flavor as a strong cup of tea and she wanted to make certain that any movies or TV shows based on them were as carefully brewed.

        Translation: Hollywood need not apply. Although Ms. George is American and lives in the California city of Huntington Beach, she insisted her Lynley mysteries (11 thus far) be entrusted to British filmmakers.

        She recalled debating the issue with one persistent American producer.

        “I said "Look, let me give you a very simple answer as to why I will not sell to Hollywood: The Mirror Crack'd.' That horrible Agatha Christie film they did with Elizabeth Taylor,” Ms. George said, a hint of a shudder in her voice as she recalls the 1980 flop.

        Her nightmarish visions included wholesale destruction of her stoutly British characters and settings (the result of regular Ms. George research journeys to the island).

        “They could say, "We really like this. But we're going to set it in Los Angeles. Instead of having a British aristocrat we'll have a fat, divorced cop who smokes a cigar.' They can do whatever they want.' ”

        Even the BBC adaptation, Ms. George acknowledges, is not exact. While the film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone followed J.K. Rowling's book like a blueprint, Mystery! has taken certain liberties.

        The most striking involve casting. In a nutshell, Lynley (Nathaniel Parker) is dark-haired, not blond; Havers (Sharon Small) is thinner and more attractive, and Deborah, Lynley's lost love, isn't a redhead with romantically flowing tresses.

        Even Ms. George, who understood producers had to seek actors who were the most talented rather than the closest match, was taken aback by that last change. More appalling was actress Amanda Ryan's bridal get-up.

        “I'm trying to decide if I should tell you what I said to the producer,” Ms. George says, then decides to confess.

        “I said, "Frankly, I'm getting married in October and if I look like that on my wedding day, shoot me now.' I thought the dress was terrible, the hair was terrible. "But she was pretty darn good, considering,” she concludes, cutting the actress a bit of slack.

        (Ms. George is engaged to Thomas McCabe, a California fire captain she met at a 1996 Thanksgiving dinner party. He has yet to read all her books, Ms. George says, but, “I think what he's read, he's enjoyed.”)

        When it comes to the plot of A Great Deliverance, some elements were excised and others altered to suit TV storytelling as well as social changes occurring since the book's 1988 publication.

        All in all, Ms. George pronounces herself pleased with the result, particularly with how Ms. Small has made the contentious Havers her own. The writer also admits feeling removed from this or any filmed version of her work.

        “The bottom line for me is I am first, last and always a novelist. My intense interest is in writing. It's not in filmmaking,” she said. “I know this is a very odd thing, but I don't have nearly the emotional investment that some writers have when their work is brought to screen.”

        Ms. George's attention is focused on a collection of short stories, I, Richard, which includes one Lynley piece and will be published in November, and the next Lynley mystery, A Place of Hiding.

        She's leaving it to her readers to fuss over the TV version of her work and predicts, with a certain glee, heavy Internet traffic.

        “It will definitely give them something to talk about.”

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