The Marlow Murder Club

This review is based on season one. Perhaps after I eventually see the next season, I'll update my review.

"The Marlow Murder Club" is a lovely show...far prettier than you'd expect for a murder mystery show. And so it's obvious the people who made this show REALLY wanted to make it look and sound lovely. This is the best aspect of the show.

As for the rest, it's still good...but is also a bit familiar. It consists of three women who become friends who decide to solve a murder in their village...and soon there are more murders. At first the police tell the ladies to stay OFF the case...but after they keep finding good evidence they are hired by the police to be consultants. The entire first season is about a series of murders where the person with the most reason to have committing them having air-tight alibis to prove they didn't do it.

I generally enjoyed the nice plot. Only two things bothered me. First, the very end when the leader of the group tells her friends to get lost...well, that just didn't make sense. Second, although the viewer sees the murder weapon was a German Luger, the police and investigators had no way of knowing this...but they seemed to know anyway. Their logic...the gun fired a Luger round. But the Luger fires (almost always) a 9mm round...the most common bullet in the world and one which fits many, many different guns and even machine guns. A tiny bit of research would have helped them get this right. Still, despite two instances where the writing could have been better, it's still an enjoyable and worthy show.

I knew nothing of the books so had no expectations at all.

Samantha Bond is pretty much always an actor worth watching and that led me to give it a go. Jo Martin I only knew from Dr Who, so not much to go on there.

The show is very much in the British groove of slower paced, gentle murder. It's a style that I enjoy very much for relatively unchallenging and 'pretty' crime.

I thoroughly enjoyed both parts, the acting was, I thought, very good, the plot was strong enough and it did of course look suitably 'British' - or to be more precise, 'English'. Nothing wrong with that, England does have some very picturesque towns and villages.

Less comedic than Father Brown and Sister Boniface, perhaps a little lighter than Midsomer Murders, I would happily watch more if they choose to make it.

Good, watchable and enjoyable, but maybe never going to be amongst the greats, it's still miles better than so many other shows.

If you're not sure, I'd certainly advise you to give it a go.

Having waded through too many sub-standard and lacklustre murder mystery dramas in recent times I was not optimistic that this would mount to much. How pleasantly surprised my wife and I were. Beautifully presented and shot along the River Thames and the small town of Marlow, this is well acted (on the whole), likeable and enjoyable. Don't expect this to be Morse or Lewis standard, it isn't as predictable as Death in Paradise and the acting, script and production is better than Sister Boniface, Madame Blanc and numerous other low key murder mystery farces. And don't get me started on the dreadful Johnny Vegas Murder series.....

A nice mystery with an unexpected ending (but aren't they always?). Good acting, good direction, lovely scenes, and classic English small-town setting.

The plot involves three women, ages around 40 - 65, who become involved as amateur sleuths in a series of murders. The leader is Judith, a retired archaeologist who lives in a classic old mansion bequeathed to her by her great aunt. The other two are a vicar's wife and a dog walker.

The police officer in charge of the investigation is also a women, due to a recent retirement or similar change of personnel (frankly I forget exactly). That opens up the well-used plot twist of the new "guy" trying to prove herself. It also makes it slightly more probable that the police would actively enlist the services of the three amateurs. Slightly. But in real life? It's not going to happen. This is one weakness of the plot.

Another is the basic improbability of it all. I won't go into any more detail, as I don't want to reveal any spoilers.

The other big weakness is the heavy-handed "women in charge" aspect. It becomes almost a political tract.

Too bad. The basic idea could have been handled a lot better with these good actors and lovely sets.

I haven't read the original books but decided to watch the show anyway, especially when I saw Samantha Bond as the main lead - I find her to be a wonderful actress.

At first I struggled a bit to find interest in the plot line as it was quite stagnant and there were constant dead ends that began to put me off of watching it altogether. Majority of the acting was well done though which turned me away from turning off the show! It was all very natural and most of the actors did a wonderful job bringing their characters to life. There were however certain parts where I slightly disliked both the dialogue and mannerisms of a couple of the actors but in the end, it didn't bother me too much.

By the second part of the story I became a lot more interested by the sudden plot twists and the pace that the story was now going. It definitely picked up near the end of the show, as the plot was finally coming together which made the ending very satisfying.

I don't watch modern murder mysteries often (between 2020 and present time) as I find that they can sometimes be very lost in translation from the original books that they're originally based on, so I didn't have high expectations but was pleasantly surprised with The Marlow Murder Club! It's a very good show for both casual murder mystery watchers (like myself) and crime fanatics that like a gripping, intricate storyline.