A reader question for the community:
January is here and while the days are filled with all kinds of winter activities, my favorite way to spend the cold evenings is a good murder mystery series. I am not sure if this is the preppiest TV genre, but I bet it is in the top two. Here our clever friends in Britain (Miss Marple, Midsomer Murders) and even the atmospheric Nordic Region (Deadwind, The Bridge) seem to get it more right than our own glossy U.S. produced fare. Given that, from any country (like Shetland), what is your favorite murder mystery series, either from this decade or past?
Midsomer Murders (the John Nettles years, if you please); I also enjoy the CB Strike series from the BBC. Hoping for another series soon!
ReplyDeleteShetland. If you have any doubts, watch the second season with Brian Cox as co-star. Douglas Henshall is perfect as Jimmy Perez. The locations are both beautiful and haunting.
ReplyDeleteColumbo, Lewis, The original Van der Valk and Pie in the Sky.
ReplyDeleteEndeavor. A young Inspector Morse in Oxford. The setting is beautiful, and the character development is phenomenal. Without doubt my favorite television series.
ReplyDeleteI first tried watching Endeavor years ago and gave up, what a mistake that was! I revisited Endeavor last winter, what a fantastic series.
DeleteI second the vote for Shetland, and add Inspector Lewis and Inspector Morse.
ReplyDeleteJohn Thaw was at his best as Regan in ‘The Sweeney’. Marvellous 1970s fashions and motor cars.
DeleteGreat dialogue too :-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdfBkS74Z20
‘We’re The Sweeney son and we haven’t had any dinner. You’ve kept us waiting! So unless you want a kicking you tell us where those photographs are.’
I like the Miss Marple and Poirot episodes with Joan Hickson and David Suchet. Also, the Campion series with Peter Davison is excellent!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Shetland. I also like the original Midsomer Murders, Vera, Father Brown, and the Joan Hickson Miss Marple series.
ReplyDeleteFather Brown, Broadchurch, and DCI Banks (if you can find it.)
ReplyDeleteAlthough not on television as a series, Stieg Larson's 'Millennium' series on DVD or online: "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo," etc.
ReplyDeleteMidsomer (esp. with Nettles) keeps just enough humor to come out on top. Shetland and some of the Nordic Noir are a little too noir for my taste
ReplyDeleteI can't speak to television, but John Sandford consistently writes interesting/entertaining murder mystery books. He won a Pulitzer prize for journalism under his real name, John Camp. Elmore Leonard and Walter Mosley are also worth a read in the crime novel genre; Leonard strayed into westerns periodically.
ReplyDeleteLord Peter Wimsey, Poirot, Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes,
ReplyDeleteIn Britain: Endeavor, Poirot, Shetland, Inspector Morse (with the always cranky John Thaw and his vintage Jaguar), Inspector Lewis, and the early Midsomer Murders (Nettles).
ReplyDeleteOn the Continent: Wallander (with Krister Hendriksson), SOKO Stuttgart, SOKO Koeln, and Wilsberg (about a bumbling old private detective with no car or money in the city of Munster – more of a comedy, but with some good mysteries, too.) My favorite is Notruf Hamburg with a great cast of characters, but it doesn’t really count as a murder mystery series because they always investigate crimes where nobody dies: missing people, white collar crimes, smuggling, blackmail, theft, break-ins, assaults, etc.
CORRECTION: "Notruf Hafenkante" - set in a Hamburg police station.
DeleteSince many of my favourites have been listed, some of my (not so prep)recently watched and enjoyed: Mare Of Easttown, Hannibal, Bloodline, The Fall, The Killing, Only Murders In The Building, Sharp Objects was fantastic; The ABC Murders.
ReplyDeleteLooks like I need to watch *Shetland*.
PIECE of CAKE about an RAF fighter squadron in 1939 and 40. First in France and later, back in England during the Battle of Britain. I believe it first aired on PBS here in the USA circa 1992-93.
ReplyDeleteAlso, TO SERVE THEM ALL MY DAYS from the novel of the same name by R F Delderfield. First aired in the UK and USA in the early 1980s.
Interestingly, Neil Dudgeon, the second Midsomer Murders DCI Barnaby, plays an RAF pilot in the PIECE OF CAKE series.
DeleteAs to my earlier answer, my apologies for not recommending murder mysteries. My suggestions were from my own DVD collection and the first titles to pop into my head. Muffy, feel free to not post my comments since they do not really answer the reader's question.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone like Murder She Wrote? My mother always used to watch that one.
ReplyDeleteOnly when she is in Maine.
DeleteI tried to get into it but found the California filming locations posing as Maine....... insurmountable
DeleteThanks for your responses, looking at it from a "location" angle I can see your point. My mother liked it because the main character (like my mother) was a middle-aged woman who was not flashy. "Flashy" being one of the worst things you could call someone, on her side of the family :-)
DeleteMY FAVORITE - I LOVE 'Murder She Wrote'
DeleteI’m disappointed EVERYONE referred to TV programs! The question is: What is your favorite murder series? When I was a freshman in prep school, I read every Ellery Queen there is. I then worked my way up to Agatha Christie.
ReplyDeleteReading is good for the soul.
Was Ellery Queen the gentleman who raised orchids?
DeleteWell the original poster included the phrase "I am not sure if this is the preppiest TV genre, " so that probably prompted responses relating to TV series.
DeleteNero Wolfe (written by Rex Stout) raised orchids. Nero Wolfe was featured in books, radio, and television.
DeleteJRC
So many favorites. 3 Pines (adaptation of Louise Penny's books set in Canada), Balthazar (French), Wycliffe (English Coastal), The Chelsea Detective, Van de Valk (set in Amsterdam), Unforgotten, Prime Suspect (Helen Mirren) and currently watching The Paris Murders (5 seasons - French with subtitles).
ReplyDeleteIf you like The Paris Murders you would probably like The Art of Crime.
DeleteJRC
Shetland, The Bay, Father Brown, The Responder (not necessarily murder, but…). Really anything on BritBox. And the beauty of it is that with the UK format, you can binge watch entire seasons in a night or two. Don’t be afraid of the new shows they put out - you’d be amazed at the quality acting in most of them. Not sure how they’ve pulled it off. I think it is because the detectives can’t just pull out a gun every time they suspect someone. They have to dig in and investigate. Only one that comes to mind in the US in the past decade is True Detective season 1. The single shot episode in that season is really amazing.
ReplyDeleteAlways hated these types of shows, sorry.
ReplyDeleteMiss Marple, Father Brown! Hard to go wrong! Cheers!
ReplyDeleteWe have enjoyed pretty much all of them. The Peter Wimsey mysteries, now decades old, were quite well done, but for the real devotee of the genre, reading The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers is the pinnacle for me, Gaudy Night coming close behind.
ReplyDeleteLove what are called cozys..murder mysteries with plucky heroines and one or more kitty cats...Often set in Maine or Cape Cod, but also in the South--Florida, Texas, or the Carolinas. Favorite authors include Lea Wait, Ellery Adams, Barbara Ross, Cate Conte, Karen MacInerney, Elizabeth Spann Craig to name a few. I always read them on my Kindle. I don't think they have made it to the big screen, DVD, or TV yet.
ReplyDeleteInspector Morse with John Thaw wins hands down. Margaret Rutherford is the greatest Miss Marple.
ReplyDeleteOh dear. I think she's the worst (to me anyway). I prefer Joan Hickson. Agatha Christie supposedly told Hickson she hope she'd play Miss Marple one day but she didn't live to see it happen.
DeleteMy 13 year old daughter has discovered Agatha Christie and it's so fun to watch her rip through them. My favorite mystery series at that age was the Martha's Vineyard Mysteries by Philip Craig. They are a snapshot of a Martha's Vineyard that I recognize but that no longer exists.
ReplyDeleteUnforgotten and Annika….both with Nicola Walker
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the Dr Jean Montrose mysteries set in Scotland by C.F. Roe. Quick reads and I dare you to NOT read them with a Scottish accent!
ReplyDeleteI love the Jackson Brody novels set in Edinburgh written by Kate Atkinson, There is a tv series of the first 4 called Case Histories, starring Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brody. It can be streamed for free on Amazon Prime or Tubi with ads...
ReplyDeleteI also like the Bernie Gunther detective books by Philip Kerr. They are set in Germany starting in the 1930's
ReplyDeleteInspector Lynley, Foyles War
ReplyDeleteAll the above. Also, I just finished season 3 of Slow Horses. Absolutely wonderful.
ReplyDeleteIf you like old fashioned Whodunnit crime stories, then you might like Edmund Crispin, Ngaio Marsh, John Dickson Carr and S.S. van Dine.
ReplyDeleteAges ago we were in Murder by the Book in Houston and given recommendations for Crispin and Marsh. The proprietor agreed with us that Sayers was the best. So we figured her recommendations were solid. They were. .
DeleteFather Brown Shetland Vera Annika
ReplyDeleteAlways loved Murder She Wrote - and not exactly "preppy" but have always enjoyed Rosemary & Thyme and the more recent Madame Blanc.
ReplyDeleteTwo foreign mystery series: Wallender- very well translated , reads like Le Carre, two tv versions in Swedish, one in English; Inspector Montelbano- the translator is a poet and does a great job-also 20 years of unbelievable tv. These items are on mhz, which I was able to subscribe to for a year for $54, ridiculously cheap...
ReplyDeleteIn addition to those mentioned (Lewis, Morse, Endevour, Shetland, Wallander) I really enjoyed Hinterland set in Aberystwyth, Wales.
ReplyDeleteJM, VA
Not really 'preppy', but I really like the 1990 series 'Blue Heelers'. I like to read Agatha Christie. And of course for me, nothing is as wonderful to watch as "Murder, She Wrote.'
ReplyDelete