MASTERPIECE MYSTERY! Zen: Cabal

What does an honest cop do when his bosses are on the side of the lawbreakers? Outwitting prosecutors, politicians, mobsters, and run-of-the-mill kidnappers and killers, detective Aurelio Zen brings justice to modern-day Italy, whether the authorities want it or not, on "Zen," a trio of spellbinding cases based on the bestselling novels by Michael Dibdin.

Rufus Sewell ("Middlemarch") stars as Zen, a Roman police detective hailing from Venice, where "Zen" is a local shortening of the name Zeno. Separated from his wife and living with his mother, he is too frazzled by his job to think about romance. That is, until he meets Tania Moretti (Caterina Murino), his chief's new secretary.

Three new episodes premiered in 2011, "Vendetta," "Cabal" and "Ratking," showcase an international cast including Ed Stoppard ("Upstairs Downstairs"), Ben Miles ("The Forsyte Saga"), Stanley Townsend ("Sherlock") and Greg Wise ("Return to Cranford").

"Zen: Cabal" - In this episode, a disgraced aristocrat jumps off a bridge. Or was he pushed? As usual, Zen gets mixed signals from his scheming bosses: the Ministry of Justice wants a ruling of suicide, while a powerful and beautiful female prosecutor hints that Zen had better start looking for the murderer.

The plot thickens when it appears that the victim was trying to inform on a previously unknown group called the Cabal, with conspirators at the highest levels of Italian society.

Meanwhile, Zen and Tania are having trouble closing the book on their failed marriages, plus Zen is being pressured into an affair by the prosecutor.

Up Next: "Ratking" will air on Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV.

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