‘Magpie Murders’ has everything you want in a British mystery

Earlier than the streaming warriors mined the world for content material, British tv made its manner into the American lounge nearly solely by the use of PBS and its associates. “Masterpiece Theater” was the community’s residence for literary variations and fashionable historic dramas, and “Thriller!” the place for the … mysteries.

These venues now share prime time as “Masterpiece” and “Masterpiece Thriller!” whose newest presentation, premiering Sunday, is “Magpie Murders,” tailored by Anthony Horowitz (“Foyle’s Struggle,” “Midsomer Murders”), from his personal 2016 novel. It’s a tightly plotted, handsomely offered, well acted, completely gratifying and structurally uncommon piece — a thriller centered round a thriller novel, two tales enacted in parallel in alternating and rhyming scenes, that between them, over the course of six episodes, offer you virtually all the things you come to British mysteries for.

An English village (instances two). A baronial mansion (instances two). A sufferer many individuals could be glad to see useless (instances two). Within the framing narrative, an beginner sleuth, drawn by circumstance into the thriller; within the story throughout the story, knowledgeable detective, a international gentleman not precisely within the mildew of Hercule Poirot however one thing of that sort (with out the tics). The native constabulary (antagonistic within the “actual world,” comical and cooperative within the “fictional”). A pleasing younger sidekick. A brand new will. A puzzle unrecognized as a puzzle. A chilly case heating up. And the previous query: Did he/she fall or was he/she pushed?

Lesley Manville performs Susan Ryeland, an editor at a small publishing home whose money cow is Alan Conway (Conleth Hill), a globally profitable writer of thriller novels set within the Fifties that characteristic a courtly non-public detective and German refugee named Atticus Pünd (Tim McMullan). Conway’s eight books and the ninth he has simply delivered — additionally referred to as “Magpie Murders” — are driving an impending sale of the corporate by writer Charles Clover (Michael Maloney) to a much bigger firm; the publication of the brand new ebook, we’re repeatedly informed, can be all that retains the corporate from potential destroy. (Although Horowitz clearly is aware of extra about publishing than I do, having written many, many books for kids, younger adults and grownup adults, together with two Sherlock Holmes and three James Bond novels, the concept an organization can reside or die on a single quantity did ring false to me. That’s my solely objection, your honor.)

Susan, simply again from the Frankfurt E book Truthful, settles right down to learn the manuscript. Going slowly sufficient to let the ebook scenes play out at leisure, she discovers that the final chapter is lacking from her copy, and from all different copies. It’s an annoyance that turns into a disaster as Conway — a prickly type with a behavior of turning individuals in his life into characters in his books, in an unflattering manner — is found useless on the backside of a tower connected to his massive nation home. (“A whodunit with out the answer,” wails Clover. “It’s not even well worth the paper it gained’t be printed on.”)

First deemed an accident, suicide is suspected as a be aware is produced — however it’s homicide, in fact, or we wouldn’t be right here. There’s a deadly fall in Conway’s ebook as effectively, that of a housekeeper whose employer, Sir Magnus Pye (Lorcan Cranitch), will flip up useless himself presently, decapitated in his lounge, or nice corridor or no matter it’s.

As knowledgeable editor, Susan is alert to discordance and senses one thing will not be fairly proper. Though she claims to be no good at fixing mysteries — “This stuff are at all times too sophisticated for me,” she tells boyfriend Andreas Patakis (Alexandros Logothetis), a disaffected classics instructor who has his personal connection to the sufferer — she is going to flip detective herself, heading right down to the scene of the crime, at first simply in quest of the lacking chapter, then making an attempt to work out the true circumstances of Conway’s loss of life. On this she is aided by Pünd himself, who in a little bit of magical realism — not performed as a hallucination — pops in from the fictional world to assist her focus.

Directed by Peter Cattaneo (“The Full Monty”), “Magpie Murders” works effectively on the display screen, the visible distinction between the 1955 and 2022 settings serving to to maintain issues clear and permitting for intelligent cuts between the 2 eras. (Some actors play roles in each tales.) It’s not straightforward to maintain a thriller over six hours, however that is two mysteries aspect by aspect, and there are sufficient attention-grabbing aspect plots and well-drawn characters (together with Claire Rushbrook as Susan’s sister and Matthew Beard as each Pünd’s assistant and Conway’s former boyfriend), to maintain issues vigorous. Above all, it performs as a pleasant sport, with — as in any whodunit well worth the identify — the clues in plain sight. The conventions of the style spring to mind solely with affection. Alan Conway might specific contempt for the style that made him wealthy, however Horowitz has written it a love letter.

Certainly, the Atticus Pünd half of the story is so effectively realized that I lengthy for a sequence constructed across the character — in keeping with the story, there are Conway’s eight earlier volumes ready to be tailored. In fact, they nonetheless must be written. However I’ve little question that the writer is as much as it.

Thanks prematurely.