Silver Spring, MD — Offering three more riveting mysteries from the Prime Suspect creator, Trial & Retribution, Set 4 debuts on DVD from Acorn Media on June 15, 2010. Created and written by Lynda La Plante—“the playwright laureate of women crime-stoppers” (NPR’s Weekend Edition)—this long-running, hit British crime series displays the same hard-bitten sensibility and emotional resonance that made Prime Suspect a television landmark. Available to U.S. audiences for the first time with its DVD release, Set 4 features three feature-length mysteries (DVD 3-vol., www.AcornOnline.com, $49.99).

Akin to Law & Order, Trial & Retribution traces a crime from commission to courtroom, revealing the complex motives and machinations of the police, the accused, and the attorneys. Playing perfect counterpoints, David Hayman (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Hope and Glory, Sid & Nancy) and Victoria Smurfit (About a Boy) star as hard-bitten London detectives grappling with an imperfect legal system in which justice doesn’t always triumph. Along the way, La Plante takes an unblinking look at the investigators, victims, and their families, compassionately showing the scars left as a consequence of crime.

In Set 4’s three feature-length mysteries, police investigate a schoolteacher’s murder complicated by racial tensions, the tragic death of a toddler, and the killing of a politically prominent couple in their home.

Set 4 episodes aired in the U.K. in 2007 as Volume XII: Paradise Lost; Volume XIII: Curriculum Vitae; and Volume XIV: Mirror Image, but they have never aired in the U.S. Guest stars include Sarah Ozeke (Life Begins), Dorian Lough (The Bill, Ashes to Ashes), Vince Leigh (Foyle’s War), Gemma Jones (The Duchess of Duke Street), and Clint Dyer (Hope Springs).

The series premiered on ITV in the U.K. in 1997, and they have aired twenty-two volumes so far. Acorn Media previously released Trial & Retribution, Sets 1-3 (Volumes I-XI).

Street: June 15, 2010
SRP: $49.99
Contains graphic scenes
DVD 3-Vol. Boxed Set: Approx. 408 min. - SDH subtitles Features: Photo galleries, a biography of creator Lynda La Plante, and cast filmographies.

Headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., Acorn Media distributes distinctive home video releases to the North American market with a special focus on the best of British television. Acorn’s DVD sets are available from select retailers, catalog companies, and direct from Acorn Media at (888) 870-8047 or www.acornonline.com.