2 Michael Kitchen as Christopher Foyle. 'War' • crimes British detective tackles WWII cases By MICHAEL GILTZ THE British mystery series "Foyle's War" -which shows police investi gating crimes during World War II - is enjoying its second season on u.s. tele vision with a series of four two-hour movies. "Among [he Few." the second of them. is a corker set in 1940 in which thieves filch precious fuel from the local depot and Foyle's son, Andrew, finds him self embroiled in a scandal in the RAE A smash hit in the UK, "Foyle's War" has a properly upstanding detective in Christo pher Foyle (Michael Kitchen), but little else about the show is predictable. "Setting a detective series in the second World War was like opening Pandora's Box," says creator Anthony Horowitz, whose wife, Jill Green, is one of the show's producers , "Everyw here we looked there's a great story." Indeed, the show depicts the war's demoralizing effect on the British.</p><p> We see citizens wailing during a bombing strike, attacks on stores owned by Italians and even English businessmen trying to arrange secret deals with the Third Reich. "Everything we put into 'Foyle's War' is true, with the exception of the murders that [provide] the stories," says Horowitz, 4~. "One of our frustrations is how little peo ple realize that to be the case." One of the most memorable aspects of the show are the characters themselves, from Foyle (named after a famed London bookshop) to his female driver, Sam (played by the wonderfully named Honey suckle Weeks), and the wounded veteran Paul Milner (Anthony Howell), who has lost a leg and bas been recruited by Foyle to help him solve crimes. "Having a personal involvement gives Milner a passionate drive tbat neither Foyle nor Sam bave," says Howell, 33."He's fighting a war that he was part of." And, of course, war seems like a distant threat compared to the byways of fictional England where, thanks to writers such as Agatha Christie and Horowitz, so many towns like the one in "Foyle's War" seem to have an inordinate amount of murders , "New York is probably a mucb safer place to live," says Horowitz , with a laugh. "If you're going to live ill La place like] Oxford or Hastings, you're probably a goner." FOYLE'S WAR SUnday-;9 p.m.;f'Bs-
