The Literate Kitty

In the mood for a smart detective yarn that requires neither an epic binge session nor an immense cast of characters of which to keep track? BritBox’s The Tower [I watched via Amazon, which counts the streamer among their slate of add-on subscription options] makes for a fine choice. _______________ When a pair of detectives from the Met’s Special Investigations Division—DS Sarah Collins and her partner, DC Steve Bradshaw—are called to take charge at the scene of a tragic accident, they know it means one thing: a police officer was involved in the incident.   Only after they’ve arrived on the scene do they fully comprehend the nature of the tragedy, which has left two crumpled bodies—that of middle-aged beat cop, PC Hadley Matthews, and a teenage girl, Farrah Mehenni—lying facedown, in spreading pools of their own blood, at the base of a multi-story building. Meanwhile, a rookie cop, PC Lizzie Adama, is still on the roof, in shock, holding the hand of a scared five-year-old boy...

For anyone who’s been jonesing for a Broadchurch replacement since that series ended back in 2017 (and honestly, who *hasn’t* been missing it?!), I’d urge a look at the six-episode season of  The Bay (available to stream via Amazon Prime channel BritBox). _______________  At first, The Bay feels like it’s shaping up to be a standard missing-persons story, when a pair of teens—twins Dylan and Holly Meredith—vanish from a youth center in the coastal town of Morecambe, Lancashire.  Detective Sergeant Lisa Armstrong, a Family Liaison Officer, is assigned the case, and given a still-wet-behind-the-ears Detective Constable, Ahmed Kharim, to shadow her. Begrudgingly, Lisa drags Med along with her to question the twins' family, where they're greeted with fear and no small amount of hostility by the extended Meredith clan: pregnant stay-at-home mom Jess, trawler stepdad Sean, two younger children, as well as Jess’s loud-mouthed mother and shifty younger brother, wh...

Whether police procedurals are strictly your “thing”, you need to check out Scott & Bailey (on Amazon), if seeing women depicted as smart, flawed, and entirely human, is . The British show centers around two detectives working on a Manchester police division’s murder squad: middle-aged Detective Constable Janet Scott (Lesley Sharp, in a splendid performance) and her younger partner, Detective Constable Rachel Bailey (the absolutely-spot-on Suranne Jones)—who, when the show begins, have been partners for about a year. Over the course of five seasons (33 episodes, in all), Janet and Rachel (along with the rest of the squad) solve a lot of cases… but just as importantly, we get to watch the ups and downs in their friendship, other relationships, family lives, and their careers. To say that Rachel is the “crazy” one (into casual sex, messed-up family, aptitude for flying off the handle) and Janet the “proper” one (married for a quarter-century, cautious, in the habit of th...