(2017-2023)
Starring Isabel Gélinas, Arthur Mazet, et al.
IMDB Entry
My local library offers Hoopla as a service to patrons where you can borrow books and video on your library card. That was how I stumbled upon Perfect Murders*, an interesting addition to the detective genre.
Its structure is similar to Columbo: we first see the meticulously planned murder take place. The police are called in to investigate. Like Columbo, the detective latches onto the clues until they prove what happens, but one twist is that the motive is not revealed until the end. The police are often quite blunt as to who they suspect, but they have to add up the clues.
Another twist is that there are multiple detectives. I have trouble keeping them straight, partly because the show is a French/Belgium co-production and they are all unfamiliar.** They are all nicely drawn, smart detectives, with interesting outside lives. The one that stood out best for me was Agnès Gélinas (Isabel Gélinas) and Thibaud (Arthur Mazet). Agnès refuses to used computers or cell phones, and has two husbands. Thibaud is more straitlaced and a bit nonplussed by her attitudes, but she is a crackerjack detective.
This doesn't give short shrift to the other detectives, all of whom have their own quirks, but the multiple detectives do make it hard to keep them straight.
The plots are cleverly done and the motives, once revealed, are cleverly constructed.
Read my novel, The Cadaver Princess, a tale of body snatchers in early Victorian London.
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*The French title translates to "Perfect Crimes," so I think they decided to jazz it up for English speaking audiences. Of course, the crime is usually a murder, but not always.
**The show is in French with subtitles.
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