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The setting: A quaint English village. The crime: Murder most foul. The detective: Perhaps a cerebral outsider, or maybe a disarmingly observant local. Any PBS viewer who’s tuned in to be pleasantly entertained by Agatha Christie’s Marple, Father Brown, Grantchester or one of seemingly countless other series knows the format. It’s cozy and predictable and a little staid, which is why the new series Magpie Murders is such fun. The six-episode series, which premieres Oct. 16, cleverly sends up the genre with its story-within-a-story format that offers a fresh twist on the classic detective story.

A book editor turns detective in ‘Magpie Murders’ 

Susan Ryeland and Atticus Pund standing in the street in 'Magpie Murders' on PBS
Lesley Manville as Susan Ryeland and Timothy McMullan as Atticus Pünd in ‘Magpie Murders’ on PBS
| (C) Eleventh Hour Films Photographer: Nick Wall

Magpie Murders (which debuted on BritBox in the U.K. earlier this year) is based on a novel of the same name by Anthony Horowitz, who also adapted his work for the screen. Horowitz knows well what goes into crafting a good mystery. In addition to writing multiple best-selling whodunits, he created Foyle’s War and has written for Agatha Christie’s Poirot and the venerable series Midsomer Murders. He puts that knowledge to good use in the delightfully meta Magpie Murders, which focuses on a book editor named Susan Ryeland (Lesley Manville) who sets out to investigate the death of her publishing company’s golden goose, Alan Conway (Game of Thrones’ Conleth Hill), the author of the best-selling Atticus Pünd mysteries. 

The prickly Conway turns up dead in episode 1, having taken an accidental fall from the tower of his sprawling country mansion. Or was he pushed? Susan soon discovers that there’s no shortage of people who might have wanted Conway out of the way, from his former lover James (Matthew Beard) to his resentful sister Claire (Pippa Haywood). But more concerning to her is the matter of his final manuscript, which he delivered the day before his death. The last Atticus Pünd book – also titled Magpie Murders – is missing the all-important final chapter. It’s “a whodunit without the solution. It’s not even worth the paper it won’t be printed on,” a frustrated Susan complains to her boss, Charles Clover (Michael Maloney). Charles plans to sell his company, Clover Books, to an outside investment firm. But without a completed manuscript, the sale may not go through.

A parallel mystery plays out in the 1950s 

As Susan heads to Suffolk to try to track down the missing pages, a parallel mystery unfolds. Conway’s fictional, Poirot-esque detective (Tim McMullan) arrives in the village of Saxby-on-Avon to investigate who decapitated Sir Magnus Pye (Loren Cranitch). (Pye’s gratuitously violent death stands in deliberately stark contrast to the pleasantly genteel setting.) The preternaturally gifted detective quickly determines that the one murder is linked to two other deaths in the village, as well as the theft of a number of ancient Roman artifacts from Pye’s mansion. 

Saxby-on-Avon is populated with the usual mix of stock characters, including the victim’s resentful wife, his jealous sister, and the bumbling local detective. These roles and others in the 1950s timeline are played by actors who also portray various people in Conway’s life. The author – who felt that writing popular mysteries was beneath him – took perverse delight in inserting mocking portrayals of people he knew in his books. Needless to say, most aren’t thrilled to learn they’ve become the subject of a literary joke. But could that be motive for murder? Or is something deeper at play? And is it possible that Conway’s last Atticus Pünd book contains the answer to the mystery of its author’s death? Susan, who periodically pauses to work out her theories with a vision of Pünd, begins to suspect that’s the case. 

‘Magpie Murders’ is a treat for mystery fans 

Atticus Pund showing a newspaper to Fraser in 'Magpie Murders' on PBS
Matthew Beard as Fraser and Tim McMullan as Atticus Pünd in ‘Magpie Murders’ on PBS | For editorial use only. © Eleventh Hour Films
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Magpie Murders is a compelling puzzle box of a mystery that’s sure to keep viewers guessing. It’s a show that demands slightly more attention than the average PBS Sunday night mystery if you hope to keep all the characters and multiple story threads straight. (Red herrings and plot twists abound.) But the investment required is worth it. 

Manville shines as the reluctant detective Susan, who’s wrestling with some big issues of her own. She has a complicated relationship with her Greek boyfriend Andreas (Alexandros Logothetis). And she’s up for a possible promotion to CEO of Clover Books, which she isn’t sure she wants. Hill’s screen time is limited. But when he appears, he breathes life into Conway, who can be by turns vindictive and charming. 

Magpie Murders works both as a compelling mystery story and a smart, self-aware send-up of the genre. Anyone who’s ever devoured an Agatha Christie novel and wondered how it is that so many people keep dropping dead in bucolic English villages will smile and nod as the show pokes fun at the genre’s conventions, even as they try to work out the mystery’s solution before the detectives get there themselves.

Magpie Murders premieres Sunday, Oct. 16 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS. New episodes air weekly through Nov. 20. 

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