Just like you, when we’re not reading crime novels, we’re often found watching crime shows on TV. Here on the site we regularly feature new series – in particular, overseas crime shows that don’t get much coverage anywhere else. That hasn’t skewed our shortlists though. Our readers have nominated the following six shows and now it’s time to choose the best of the best in our Best Crime Show category for 2024!
What a difficult choice. (We’re kinda pleased as well that half of these shows are based directly on some of our favourite books.)
CLICK HERE TO VOTE ON OUR SHORTLISTS!
Bad Monkey
Featured on Apple TV+, Bad Monkey stars Vince Vaughn as Andrew Yancy, a South Florida private detective who nowadays is a restaurant inspector. Transferable skills, right? But when a severed arm is discovered by a tourist and Yancy is tasked with delivering it to the morgue, our somewhat gonzo protagonist is drawn into a strange tale involving corrupt property developers and the people out to stop them. One of the methods used is a curse, issued by Gracie the Dragon Queen, but what’s really far more deadly is the determination of these guys to snuff out anyone in their way. That could include Yancy. It’s based on the excellent 2013 novel by Carl Hiaasen, so it has naturally piqued the interest of Crime Fiction Lover readers. And, yep, there’s a monkey.
Ludwig
Throughout their history, mystery novels have equated the investigation of a crime with the solving of a puzzle – and this entertaining BBC series takes the notion rather literally. Reclusive John Taylor (David Mitchell) is Ludwig, a man who sets the puzzles you’ll find in a newspaper for a living. When his twin brother, Detective Inspector James Taylor, goes missing, the wife of the latter calls on John to impersonate James. She’s convinced James disappeared because of a case he was working on and that it might involve a coverup within Cambridge CID. The results are hilarious, with comedian David Mitchell in perfect form as an extremely reluctant but highly effective detective. Clever with an undercurrent of family and police corruption.
Slow Horses S4
Is it us, or is Slow Horses getting better with each series? Based on the novel Spook Street by Mick Herron, season four begins with a massive explosion at a shopping centre in London and the apparent murder of River Cartwright. But no, the unidentifiable shotgun victim wasn’t him and River, played by Jack Lowden, is off on a wild goose chase to France where he starts to uncover some uncomfortable secrets about his family’s past. Meanwhile, it seems that Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) and his failed spooks at Slough House are being hunted by a relentless assassin. Could this murder machine be linked to what River’s looking into? Slow Horses never lets us down.
Nordic Murders S5
While season four of this German crime series set on the Isle of Usedom, in Northeast Germany near the border of Poland, the latest three stories mark a return to form. Karin Lossow, played by Katrin Sass, returns as a former prosecutor, who has herself served time for murder but now assists the local police in their cases. Her nephew, Reiner Witt (Till Firit) heads up the local team of investigators and things get underway when a palliative care nurse is found murdered in her home. Immediately in the frame is the woman’s strange neighbour, a prepper with a survival shelter in the woods, whom Karin suspects recently murdered some puppies. But is that enough to say he killed the nurse? This isn’t real Nordic noir but Crime Fiction Lover readers don’t seem to mind – there’s always huge interest in this series.
Rebus
This is a third time out for Ian Rankin’s Edinburgh cop John Rebus, in a new TV adaptation originally intended for Viaplay but which luckily ended up on BBC One and BBC Scotland. While Rebus on the page is past retirement age, here he’s in his 40s but wrestling those demons so many murder investigators face. Sometimes the bottle. Sometimes a desire to take a shortcut to justice. Richard Rankin (no relation) is in the titular role and is investigating a vicious attack on a man in the street with DC Siobhan Clarke (Lucie Shorthouse), but things get really hairy when his brother, Michael (Brian Ferguson), and some ex-army buddies take on a Belfast heroin smuggling ring. Excellent characterisation, tonally it hits the same notes as the books, and like our protagonist and his dram of Laphroaig, you’ll be wanting more…
True Detective S4
Remember the folk horror vibe that came with the very first series of True Detective, down there in the Louisiana heat? Well, it’s back in True Detective: Night Country, the fourth season of HBO’s anthology series, which relocates to sub-zero Alaska in midwinter and stars Jodie Foster as Liz Danvers, a cop too cold and too principled for policing, even in such an underpopulated part of the world. And the population of Ennis has just been reduced by eight as a group of researchers is massacred in what looks like a ritual killing. The entire time, there’s a sense that the spirit of a murdered Inupiat woman touches on the case, which deeply affects Evangeline Navarro, a state trooper who works with Danvers, played by Kali Reis. So dark. So cold. So perfect. And… scary!
Click here to see all the shortlists for our awards, then follow the link to the voting form.
