Here are 15 British crime dramas, new and old, to watch. The genre is varied, the casts inevitably fine and justice almost always prevails.
Hero Fiennes Tiffin, from left, Colin Firth and Dónal Finn in “Young Sherlock,” about a 19-year-old Sherlock who befriends James Moriarty. Summer, and all the vacation days and potential travel that implies, is upon us.
And whether flying internationally or taking time off at home, you can’t beat a good British crime drama as the ultimate self-soother . The genre is varied, the casts inevitably fine and justice almost always prevails. So here are 15 shows, new and old, to watch.
, this version gives us a college-aged Sherlock banished to the role of Oxford University porter by his fed-up older brother, Mycroft , who hopes to put the arrogant young rip on a steadier path.
Alas, before you can say “Sir Bucephalus Hodge” ,is up to his flat cap in murder and mystery, which he is determined to solve with the aid of his new best bud — wait for it —. An over-the-top romp that proves, if nothing else, the near-miraculous elasticity of Arthur Conan Doyle’s iconic creation.and co-star Mark Gatiss is up to it again, this time in the leading role.
In post-World War II London, Gabriel Book runs a secondhand bookshop, above which he and his beloved wife, Trottie , live. But all is not what it seems, as Jack , the young orphan ex-con they take under their wing, soon discovers. Gabriel apparently did something so important during the war that he is now the neighborhood’s go-to crime solver .
He also has a personal stake in Jack’s reclamation, which gives the series a fascinating and pathos-filled LGBTQ-history subtext. Rishi Nair as Alphy Kottaram, left, and Robson Green as Geordie Keating in the 11th and final season of “Grantchester. ”in this long-running pairing of a young vicar with a worldly police detective in the titular idyllic Cambridgeshire village during the 1950s and ‘60s.
In Seasons 1-4, that vicar is Sidney Chambers , a jazz enthusiast plagued by memories of WWII who offers unsolicited insights to gruff and initially ungrateful Det. Inspector Geordie Keating . Friendship inevitably blooms, and when Sidney leaves the scene at the end of Season 4, many hearts are broken.
But subsequent replacement vicars — Will Davenport in Seasons 5-9 and Alphy Kotteram in Seasons 9-11 — each find their way to Geordie’s side, bringing their own charms, detectival insights and personal woes. The final season premieres June 14.
) is brought in to help DI Susan Taylor of the Organized and Serial Crime Unit solve a series of abductions that Creegan comes to believe have been committed by a serial killer. The relationship sticks and the pair goes on to track down all manner of nasty killers with a combination of unconventional techniques and good police work.
Green’s Creegan gets top billing, and a deeply resonant personal story, but seeing Walker play a finely tuned second fiddle is great fun too.and “Dept. Q”), Det. Inspector Karen Pirie is a refreshing historic cases hero.
Smart, ambitious and dogged, she is not burdened by a dark past or traumatic pain or the generally dour outlook that plague so many of her peers. Based on the books of, the series is set on the Scottish peninsula of Fife and all the gloriously broody scenery that implies. Murder mystery plus vicarious international mini-break.
Whether with an old-fashioned one-case-per-episode or a more sprawling multistrand story, quaint or violent, historic or modern, the birthplace of Agatha Christie understands that we all need stories that make sense of seemingly senseless acts.puts a sweet-faced Catholic nun at the center of all manner of murder in the fictional 1960s Cotswolds town of Great Slaughter. Sister Boniface is, of course, not just any nun.
Having served as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during WWII before entering the convent, she holds a PhD in chemistry, which makes her the perfect, if most unlikely, forensic specialist. Unflappably brilliant and sincere in her vocation, she proves that faith in action can be both serious and great fun to watch.
Like Sister Boniface, Susan Grey served her country as a codebreaker, but she is finding post-WWII life a bit more, well, boring. Forced back into the traditional roles of wife and mother, Susan tries to make do until a series of murders suggests to her a pattern unnoticed by the police. Gathering her former andwho are also languishing in a sexist world, she creates, for two marvelous seasons, her own private crime unit.
“His & Hers” on Netflix, “Bookish” on PBS and a pair of mysteries from Harlan Coben, on CBS and Netflix, offer different kinds of twists and puzzles to solve. When truculent Gary Jackson is murdered by an arrow outside his home in Nottinghamshire, near Sherwood Forest, Det. Chief Supt.
Ian St. Clair is quick to put down any Robin Hood references and look instead at the town’s 30-year-old but still roiling divisions over the U.K.’s 1984-85 miners’ strike. Based on real events, “Sherwood” is both a murder mystery and a contemplation of the damage done byand longheld grudges, often based on misinformation. With an incredible cast, including Lesley Manville, Kevin Doyle and Lorraine Ashbourne, it is deeply moving drama that illuminates the personal price of social divisions.
Season 3 premieres this year. Season 3 of “Magpie Murders” — titled ”Marble Hall Murders” — is also set to bow this year, so now is a good time to catch up on the previous adaptations of Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland novels, which both satirize and honor theRyeland is a book editor whose most famous — and tiresome — author, Alan Conway , has just turned in his final murder mystery called “Magpie Murders.
” Only the last chapter is missing and Conway has just been found dead at his country home. So it’s up to Ryeland, working with Conway’s literary detective Atticus Pünd , to figure out what happened, both in real life and in the book. This mystery-within-a-mystery launches two vivid characters, Ryeland and Pünd, working separately and together to solve crimes, sometimes in two different timelines.a new series that has its charms.
Still, I’m sticking with the older version, which ran from 2001 to 2008. Over six seasons, the unlikely partnership of Det. Inspector Thomas Lynley, eighth earl of Asherton and generally natty guy played by Nathaniel Parker, and his distinctly working-class and perpetually disheveled sergeant, Barbara Havers , creates a classic odd-couple mix that allows some actual insight into issues of class and gender. But mostly, they make a great detective team, often using their differences to their advantage.
The mysteries range far and wide over the U.K., from gritty streets to posh country homes, and 24 90-minute episodes are enough to keep you going all summer long. , remains a classic and constant recommendation. The great Derek Jacobi plays the titular 12th century monk who was once a soldier of the Crusades.
Now a botanist and apothecary, Cadfael aids the local sheriff in solving all manner of crimes committed in and nearduring England’s 15-year civil war known now as the Anarchy. Though the series does not delve as deeply into the politics of the time as the novels do, it creates an uncertain world in which violence runs rampant.
Mercifully, there is a monk who knows his stuff, and if Jacobi isn’t enough reason to watch, the costumes and landscape are pretty great too.especially as the wildly frank, slightly raunchy, take-no-prisoners DI Viv Deering in this blackly funny depiction of the wayward Friday Street division of the Manchester Police. They are not misfits exactly — Deering knows what she’s doing as does her team, including the ambitious Det. Constable Dinah Kowalski , the self-doubting Det. Sgt.
Joy Freers and Paul Ritter’s wise-cracking Randolph Miller — but they are much more recognizably human than most TV coppers. We know they’ll get their man, but it will take some time, and more than a few hilarious and heartbreaking misfires.
Two new mysteries show the tariff-proof resilience of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie “Sherlock and Daughter,” a paternal twist on the Holmes legend and a new adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Towards Zero” debut on the CW and BritBox, respectively.leaves London’s Metropolitan police force in search of a more peaceful life in 1960s Northumberland. But as anyone who has seencould tell him, Newcastle Upon Tyne is far from peaceful.
Still brokenhearted, Gently finds himself solving crimes, and trying to teach his sergeant John Bacchus to be an honorable man in a time of shifting social mores and political upset. ). He plays old-school Det. Sgt.
Ray Miles, a member of an East End squad that is less than thrilled by their new guy, opposite the smooth and ambitious Det. Inspector Joseph Chandler , who shows up to his first crime scene in a tux and doesn’t appear to understand that this is theBut with what seems like a Ripper copycat on the loose, everyone needs to put aside their preconceived notions and figure out what’s going on.
The series is wildly atmospheric with plenty of gallows humor and more than a few truly loopy plotlines, but great fun with Davis managing, as ever, to sell even the most preposterous scene. James Norton as Henry Alveston, from left, Matthew Rhys as Darcy and Matthew Goode as Wickham in “Death Comes to Pemberley. ”to “Pride and Prejudice” is a miniseries, and just three episodes long, so this might be a bit of a cheat.
But if you haven’t seen it, you should. Elizabeth Darcy and Fitzwilliam Darcy are happily married and planning a ball. Sure, a couple of servants see a ghost in the woods , and Col. Fitzwilliam clearly wants to marry Georgiana , who doesn’t seem too keen, but what of it?
Then Elizabeth’s sister Lydia shows up uninvited and hysterical; her still-caddish husband, George Wickham , had an argument with his friend Capt. Denny , and the two vanished into the woods where shots were subsequently heard. Once again, Mr. Darcy must do what he can to protect the dreaded Wickham, and in doing so all manner of secrets are revealed. Jane Austen meets Agatha Christie with a cast either writer would kill for.
Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. Previously she was assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment following a 12-year stint as television critic and senior culture editor. A Pulitzer Prize winner in 2015 and finalist for criticism in 2013 and 2014, she has won various awards for criticism and feature writing. She is the author of the Hollywood mysteries “Oscar Season” and “The Starlet.
” She lives in La Crescenta with her husband and two dogs.
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