Critic Reviews

Bookish is supremely watchable and provides us with a brilliant new TV detective, some craftily constructed puzzles and a fascinating look at post-war London. In fact, it really is saying something that the biggest problem with this first season is that some elements and characters end up feeling underutilised.

This is an overwhelmingly fun-filled drama that happens to be about multiple murders. It helps that it looks superb, given what must have been a low budget, and its cast – featuring names as grand as Elliot Levey, Joely Richardson and Paul McGann – adds extra lustre.

While Bookish enjoys many of the trappings of cosy crime, then the titular detective’s domestic arrangements give the drama an extra dimension.

Overall Bookish is a fine piece of entertainment – meticulously worked, beautifully paced and decidedly moreish. (It was commissioned for a second series before the first began.) It has enough spikiness to stop it being formulaic but enough love for the genre to keep it comforting. A joy.

Bookish appears to be a simple, quintessentially English drama with beats of Agatha Christie (strychnine and prussic acid feature) but it is deceptively multifaceted and modern. Gatiss’s special power is in taking something we thought was established (eg Sherlock and Dracula) and giving it new wings. This is no exception.

Like the best, by which I mean my favorite such series, it’s humorous and fun, while also being human and sad.

Very entertaining mystery. .... The actor [Mark Gatiss] is so keenly aware of the limits of his character’s charm. And that in itself is charming.

On the whole across the first season, it seems like the show is still finding its footing. The spotty clues about who Jack is to Book and Trottie are handled with less grace than the murder mysteries, but are inherently more compelling, which can make it frustrating that the show takes so long to prioritize them.