There are few pleasures quite as comforting as settling into a good British murder mystery, preferably with a cup of tea, a suspiciously well-appointed country house and a collection of people who seem to have spent their entire lives cultivating motives for murder. Marble Hall Murders, the latest adaptation of Anthony Horowitz’s Susan Ryeland novels, has all these essentials in abundance, along with a particularly appealing bonus: two mysteries unfolding at once, each with its own collection of eccentrics, secrets and people who would probably benefit from a frank conversation with a therapist.
As the six-part series reaches its finale on PBS tonight, the show has once again demonstrated the enduring appeal of a well-constructed puzzle and two leads who make solving one look like such agreeable company. Lesley Manville and Tim McMullan have become a thoroughly winning detective partnership, even when their characters are separated by decades, fictional realities and the occasional inconvenient corpse.
Manville returns as Susan Ryeland, the sharp-eyed book editor whose professional life has a habit of becoming entangled with murder. This time, she is helping Eliot Crace, the troubled grandson of the late Miriam Crace, a hugely successful children’s author whose literary empire is preparing for a lucrative screen adaptation. Miriam’s family has plenty of reasons to dislike her, and her mysterious death has left behind enough unresolved questions to keep an entire village of amateur sleuths busy for years.
Meanwhile, Eliot is writing a new installment in the fictional Atticus Pünd detective series, and his manuscript contains a second mystery set in 1950s Corfu. The two stories begin to reflect one another in increasingly intriguing ways, with clues hiding in the overlap between family history and fictional invention. Horowitz has built a career on the pleasures of this literary sleight of hand, and the series understands that watching somebody read between the lines can be every bit as satisfying as watching them chase a suspect down a dark corridor.
The great delight is watching Manville work. Her Susan is clever without being smug, determined without becoming humorless, and perpetually alert to the small inconsistencies that everybody else has overlooked. She has the air of somebody who could spot a murderer while correcting a manuscript and making arrangements for lunch. McMullan’s Atticus Pünd brings a gentler, more contemplative quality to the proceedings, with a faintly melancholy charm that makes his appearances feel like visits from an old friend. Their relationship remains the series’ secret weapon. Even when the plot gets tangled in anagrams, false identities and family grievances that seem to have been fermenting since the Edwardian era, their easy rapport provides a reassuring thread to follow. Both actors also get to play variations on their characters across the two timelines, a clever conceit that gives the ensemble opportunities to show off its range while inviting viewers to play the casting game themselves.
The overlapping narratives are where Marble Hall Murders has its most fun. Miriam’s family is a particularly fertile collection of suspects, and Patricia Hodge brings delicious complexity to the formidable author, whose literary success appears to have done little for her domestic popularity. The fictional Corfu mystery supplies its own stately pleasures: inherited wealth, suspicious spouses, simmering resentments and enough secrets to fill several locked drawers. The dual-story structure occasionally makes the cast and relationships tricky to keep straight, particularly when actors appear in different roles across the two worlds. Some clues are more conspicuous than others, and viewers who enjoy solving the puzzle before the detectives may find a few turns easier to anticipate. Still, the show’s willingness to let the stories comment on one another gives it a playful intelligence that distinguishes it from a straightforward whodunit. The result is a mystery that rewards attention while remaining welcoming to anyone who simply wants to enjoy a well-turned tale.
There is also something quietly affectionate about the series’ view of books and the people who make them. Authors can be difficult, publishers can be opportunistic, families can be appalling, and literary success can conceal a multitude of private miseries. Yet stories endure, acquiring new meanings as they pass from one reader to another. The show’s most charming trick is its suggestion that fiction can preserve clues to real lives, even when the people involved would much rather keep their histories buried. For all the poison, plotting and suspiciously convenient deaths, there is a warm appreciation here for the ingenuity of a good mystery and the pleasure of sharing one with an attentive audience.
Tonight’s finale brings Susan and Atticus to the final stretch of their investigation, with the truth about the tangled mysteries still to be uncovered. It is a fitting occasion to savor what this adaptation does so well: elegant performances, a teasingly elaborate plot and a sense of fun that never entirely disappears beneath the body count. If this really is the last case for this particular version of Susan Ryeland, she has earned a fond farewell. Pour the tea, make your accusations and keep an eye on the person who seems far too pleased with themselves. In this world, everyone has a secret, every manuscript may contain a clue, and the most satisfying ending is the one that makes you smile at how cleverly you were led astray.