Phyllis Logan is best known as the very prim and proper Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey, well, she has a great time playing somebody thoroughly different in her new cosy crime drama Murder Most Puzzling on 5.
Based on the bestselling "Puzzle Lady Mysteries" by Parnell Hall, Logan stars as Cora Felton, who has become so famous for setting crossword puzzles that she has her own line of biscuits!
But the big twist is that Cora is a total fraud. Mrs Hughes would be outraged! Turns out, chain-smoking Cora doesn't set her own puzzles; they're actually created by her clever niece, Sherry.
Logan has the time of her life playing the boozy Puzzle Lady, who delights in sharing anecdotes about her saucy shennigans with her endless list of ex-husbands. Her secret seems safe as she hides away in the sleepy village of Bakerbury, but then a dead woman is found in the local churchyard with the killer leaving a crossword clue on her body.
The baffled police, led by the permanently stressed-looking DCI Derek Hooper (Adam Best), turn to Cora for advice on cracking the crossword clue. But of course, she’s completely useless at crosswords, and so she has to get Sherry to help her.
Soon, though, Cora discovers the one thing she is good at is solving murders! This is not a hard-hitting crime drama. Murder Most Puzzling is 100% aimed at fans of shows like Death in Paradise and Ludwig, and it’s impossible not to enjoy.
Cora is so over the top and ridiculous, you just have to warm to her. Nothing will stop her on her quest to catch the killer, and it even turns out she has a gun, which was obviously a present from one of her ex-husbands.
Game of Thrones star Charlotte Hope is fun as her niece Sherry, who tries and fails to keep her aunt in check as she gallops around Bakerbury, questioning suspects and breaking into antiques shops looking for clues. She at one point scolds her aunt for acting like Miss Marple, well as one book reviewer put it, The Puzzle Lady is Miss Marple on steroids!
The supporting cast are all good, including Dalgliesh’s Alistair Brammer as tenacious journalist Anton Grant, who provides a love interest for Sherry. But it’s very much Logan’s show, and if you like the star and enjoy crime dramas, Murder Most Puzzling is for you. Just perhaps don’t mention any of this to Mr Carson!
Murder Most Puzzling is on 5 and its streaming service, channel5.com. See our best Channel 5 dramas guide for more series to enjoy.
