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Nov 3, 2023 · Looking for strong female detectives in British detective series? We've got Vera, Agatha Raisin, The Fall, and many more great British detective series
Scott & Bailey: Created by Sally Wainwright, Diane Taylor. With Suranne Jones, Lesley Sharp, Tony Mooney, David Prosho. Detectives Janet Scott & Rachel Bailey investigate murders with Manchester Police's Major Incident Team.
- (11K)
- 2011-05-29
- Crime, Drama, Mystery
- 45
Vera: With Brenda Blethyn, Jon Morrison, Riley Jones, Kenny Doughty. With her caustic wit and singular charm, DCI Vera Stanhope leads her team as they face a series of captivating murder mysteries set against the breathtaking Northumberland landscape.
- (21K)
- 2011-05-01
- Crime, Drama, Mystery
- 90
- 15 Prime Suspect
- 14 Vera
- 13 Scott & Bailey
- 12 Karen Pirie
- 11 Marcella
- 10 Miss Marple
- 9 Broadchurch
- 8 Happy Valley
- 7 Line of Duty
- 6 The Bletchley Circle
The incomparable Helen Mirren stars as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, which is basically the OG in terms of female-led detective shows. Running for seven seasons starting in 1991 and written by Lynda La Plante, Jane solves brutal murders in London, leading an unruly crew of misogynist underlings who bristle under a woman’...
Along with the hit crime series Shetland, Vera is based on a series of novels penned by British mystery writer Ann Cleeves, and 12 seasons have been filmed to date. Award-winning actress Brenda Blethyn plays Vera Stanhope, a rumpled, often flustered lead detective working in Northern England, wearing a hat that makes her look like Snufkin from the ...
What’s better than one female detective running the show? Three of them: Lesley Sharp as Detective Constable Janet Scott, Suranne Jones as Detective Constable Rachel Bailey, and Amelia Bullmore as Detective Chief Inspector Gill Murray (for all but the 5th and final season) on Manchester’s Major Incident Team. Scott and Bailey are best friends (usua...
This one will be a mini-binge, as there has only been one season filmed so far, but that first one definitely warrants a second. Lauren Lyle plays Karen Pirie, a popular character who appears in six of Scottish writer Val McDermid’s crime novels. Pirie is thrown in charge of her first big case, largely because the top brass are under pressure to pu...
Marcella is categorized as British ‘Nordic noir’, and was written, directed, and produced by the creator of Scandinavian hit The Bridge, but that doesn’t really explain why this is one of the more bonkers detective shows you’ll see. The titular character is played by Anna Friel, and at first look she’s a detective investigating the possible resurge...
We’re going to be talking about the BBC version that ran from 1984 to 1992 and starred Joan Hickson as Agatha Christie’s sprightly senior detective, tackling the full dozen of Christie’s Miss Marple novels. Although she was famously unhappy with adaptations of her work, Christie had expressed to Hickson years before that she hoped she would end up ...
Okay, so this isn’t strictly what you might call "female-led", but Olivia Colman as Detective Sergeant Ellie Miller is definitely the beating heart of a show in which David Tennant as Detective Inspector Alex Hardy started out as the big name. By the time the third season ended in 2017, Colman was truly a (well-deserved) star internationally instea...
If you like your shows gritty, run don’t walk toHappy Valley, a misnomer if there ever was one. Set in a very dreary West Yorkshire, this show belongs to Sarah Lancashire as Catherine Cawood, a police sergeant who’s also raising her grandson after the suicide of her daughter after his birth as a product of sexual assault. Cawood already has a siste...
Again, not strictly female-led, but the six-season show would have a massive hole without Vicky McClure as Detective Constable Kate Flemming, working in partnership with Martin Compston as Detective Sergeant Steve Arnott at Anti-Corruption Unit 12, which is sort of like Internal Affairs on Law & Order, investigating corrupt cops. And boy are there ...
The four women leading this mystery period piece aren’t police detectives but codebreakers who worked together at Bletchley Park during WWII. The series begins several years afterwards, when the women are regular citizens again, but notice a series of London murders that seem to be eluding either the attention or the understanding of the police. Cu...
- Molly Pohlig
- Scott & Bailey (2011-2016) Created by award-winning writer Sally Wainwright (Gentlemen Jack, Happy Valley), Scott & Bailey follows the lives of two female detectives working with Manchester Police’s Major Incident Team.
- Unforgotten (2015-present) Unforgotten sees DI Sunil “Sunny” Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) and his partner DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker), and later DCI Jess James (Sinéad Keenan) solve various harrowing cold cases amid the hustle and bustle of London.
- DCI Banks (2010-2016) Based on Peter Robinson’s Inspector Alan Banks novels, DCI Banks stars Stephen Tompkinson as the titular detective, a stubborn and tenacious man hellbent on unraveling every single gruesome murder mystery that comes his way.
- Annika (2021-present) If you loved Nicola Walker’s performance in Unforgotten, you’ll surely love her performance in Annika as well. DI Annika Strandhed is the head of Glasgow’s Marine Homicide Unit, juggling various gruesome murder cases while trying to raise a headstrong teenage daughter at the same time.
Queens of Mystery: Created by Julian Unthank. With Martin Trenaman, Julie Graham, Sarah Woodward, Siobhan Redmond. Three crime-writing sisters and their 28-year old niece use their extensive knowledge of crime to solve whodunit style murders in the picturesque English village of Wildemarsh.
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Mar 1, 2024 · British crime and detective shows, from Line of Duty to The Fall, offer pulse-pounding police action, along with a dose of family drama.
