by Lorie Lewis Ham
During the writers and actors strikes in the US (the writers’ one has finally ended) I have still had plenty of TV from the UK to watch, and one of my new favorites is Mrs. Sidhu Investigates on Acorn TV.
Mrs. Sidhu (Meera Syal-seen in The Wheel of Time) is a caterer with a taste for solving mysteries. Throughout the four episodes of the first season, her nosey nature has her butting into murder investigations when murders cross her path through her catering jobs. Her delicious food helps her draw people into talking to her, and she even uses her food to try to get on the good side of the grumpy DCI Burton (Craig Parkinson-seen on Grace), who reluctantly ends up accepting her help—though she sees it more as a crime-solving partnership. Mrs. Sidhu appears to have inherited her keen sleuthing skills from her father who was a police officer.
The show is set in Slough, an industrial immigrant town in the middle of the Berkshires. She is a widow and her lazy son Tez (Gurjeet Singh) lives with her. He is obsessed with video games but doesn’t seem able to keep a job. Over the course of the four episodes, Tez begins to help her with the catering and her sleuthing. He provides a lot of the humor for the show, and it’s nice to see them working together. At some point during the investigations, Mrs. Sidhu usually spends some time talking to her dead husband and father—both to rant and to talk about the cases.
This is an absolutely delightful show! Great characters, great chemistry between Mrs. Sidhu and DCI Burton, interesting mysteries, and food that looks so good it makes your mouth water! It is also really nice to see more diversity happening in British mysteries.
The four episodes in this first season take place among the elite that Mrs. Sidhu caters to—a fancy high-end health club, a convention for a hit fantasy TV show, a successful tech company, and a major boxing championship match.
Being more of an amateur sleuth foodie mystery type show, it is on the lighter side than a police procedural. If you love a good mystery with great characters, don’t miss Mrs. Sidhu Investigates!
Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Spotify. A new episode went up this week.
0 Comments