A New Golden Age of Crime and Detection on Television

There are so many shows in the crime or detective genre at the moment, I find myself spoilt for choice.

Peter James "Grace" has been back recently in an excellent trilogy of stories starring John Simm. Meanwhile, fresh from Endeavour's final season, Roger Allam joins Nancy Carroll (Father Brown) in "Murder in Provence".

Rather like "The Singing Detective" but with two crimes to solve and get a resolution, "Magpie Murders" blends a fictional detective back in the 1950s with a modern mystery to solve. Excellent acting especially from Lesley Manville. Will the second book be adapted? I hope so.

Other recent glories include "Endeavour" bowing out in style, while over the past few years, some other excellent stories have made it to the small screen - "Vigil", "Sherwood" and "Macdonald and Dodds", not to mention the remade (and better in my opinion than Barry Foster's one) "Van de Valk" and daytime show "London Kills". I also enjoyed catching up with Martin Clunes  in both series of "Manhunt" which really has the feel of a real police investigation.

In spare time, I've been catching up with "Shetland", which had characters and a real sense of plance, also "Elementary" which is what "Sherlock" should have been - clever plots and characters and never so twisted and convoluted you lose the will to live. Australian drama "City Homicide" is also very good, strong production values and characters and includes Nadine Garner (from "The Doctor Blake Mysteries"

Of foreign language films - subtitles essential - I think Bruno Cremer's French language "Maigret " has to be definitive. I've seen 3 British versions - Rupert Davies, Michael Gambon and Rowan Atkinson, all good, and Rowan especially good, but this has the feel of France that, I'm sorry to say, none of the others quite has.

Never having seen all of it, I'm also enjoying the odd "George Gently" - Martin  Shaw showing what a good actor he could be, ably abated by Lee Ingleby. 

Coming soon - the "Mallorca Files Season 3" has started filming, "Sister Boniface Mysteries" should be showing soon, and "Father Brown" is greenlit for another season next year. And I think Midsomer may have some more murders to offer us this year.