Benedict Cumberbatch and a canine friend in the first still from “Sherlock” Season 4. (Photo: (Photo: Courtesy of Robert Viglasky/Hartswood Films for MASTERPIECE)
Can’t get enough of deer stalkers and amateur sleuths solving crimes? We got your back. Here are 16 fantastic British murder mysteries you can investigate right from your couch.
The murder mystery is a cross-cultural phenomenon. Here in America, we call them “procedurals” more often than not, but the concept is basically the same. There’s a case – usually a murder but sometimes something else – that needs to get solved, probably in an hour or less. There will be false leads and red herrings, but at the end of the day, there are usually answers.
And no one makes a good murder mystery like the Brits. Sometimes it seems as though the United Kingdom produces as many different mysteries as they do kinds of tea. But what makes them so great? The actors, the settings, the country’s long-running obsession with the genre? Maybe it’s really all of the above.
And even if you don’t understand why people don’t just move out of these small bucolic towns where the murder rate has got to be like 50%, you’ll still watch anyway.
So the next time you’re looking for a good mystery , give one of these a try.