Food for the Soul: Mystery Shows – Fall 2025 Edition

By Nina Heyn

There is nothing like an adventure/mystery show to alleviate the blues of the long dark evenings of autumn. Here are a few shows that might do the job.

ART DETECTIVES (1 season, 2025- )

This new series is about a London detective (Stephen Moyer, True Blood) whose two-person unit is assigned to solve “heritage crimes,” which include murders in connection with art heists, antique frauds, or anything that requires knowledge of art. I cannot resist anything with “art” in the title, and I’m glad watched this show—it has well-constructed, interesting plots and a likeable cast that behaves in believable ways. The crimes are inventive, too: from wine fraud to a daring heist of a Chinese antique from an auction house, to a search for a Walter Sickert painting.

SLOW HORSES (5 seasons, 2022-)

A favorite show of fans of intellectually complex spy stories, Slow Horses is back with its fifth season. This one is based on London Rules—one of the best novels by Mick Herron, a British author whose no-illusions approach to modern geopolitics and even more cynical view of office politics have earned him top-dog status in the British spy novel genre. This time, the hapless crew of washed-up spy rejects is mixed up with Libyan terrorists whose attempts to destabilize British society come in a pale second next to MI5’s ability to plot, maim, and undermine within its own ranks. As always, the only real mastermind with experience here is Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), the spy who came in from the Cold War and who hides under his untidy exterior a steel-trap mind and clarity of purpose. The eternal computer geek Ho, who is oblivious to anything outside of zeroes and ones, has a big role this season when he is honey-trapped, with disastrous consequences.

LUDWIG (1 season, 2024-)

If spies are not your thing but you enjoy watching puzzles being solved, the premise of this new show requires some suspension of disbelief (but what good movie or show doesn’t?). The titular John “Ludwig” Taylor learns that his identical twin brother James Taylor has disappeared. James’ wife asks John to impersonate James for a day or two to gain time in the search. James happens to be a British police detective, and when John reluctantly shows up at his brother’s office pretending he is James, he is almost immediately put to work. He succeeds at his first, accidental murder investigation by using his skill at creating crossword puzzles, and despite his occasional social miscues is off to a good start, misleading his police colleagues as to his identity, all the while solving difficult cases. The icing on the cake in the show is the music by composers Nathan Klein and Finn Keane, whose scores are all based on Beethoven’s compositions. If you are musically inclined, you can solve your own puzzle here by identifying the Beethoven oeuvres that underlie the scores for different scenes. The show was created by Mark Brotherhood, whose Death in Paradise is a perennially popular “cosy mystery” show, and Ludwig—with numerous BAFTA and Emmy nominations—has a very high popularity rating as well. Season 2 is currently in production.

MAIGRET (1 season, 2025-)

Inspector Jules Maigret was originally a wily French detective created by Belgian writer Georges Simenon in 75 novels published intermittently between 1929 and 1973. Since then, 500 million copies of the novels have been printed, and there have been numerous 20th-century adaptations in comics, movies and TV series, making this character one of the most iconic detectives of the genre. There have been screen versions of Maigret in France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and the UK, where several versions of Maigret’s adventures include the 2016-2017 show starring Rowan Atkinson. The new Maigret show is the latest—and very modernized—version of the Maigret stories. Produced by an American company and shot on locations in Hungary that pose as Paris, it stars a slew of excellent British and European actors, with Maigret portrayed by young British TV actor Benjamin Wainwright. This is a Maigret for new generations, where his investigations uncover crime connected to social media influencers and Fumal, the bully from Maigret’s childhood, is now a billionaire engaged in hostile takeovers. Maigret himself is now a lithe young man in love with his beautiful psychologist wife instead of a traditional portly old man in a bowler hat, smoking a pipe. At the time of this writing, the new show is still unveiling, but the updated version shows great promise.

THE RESIDENCE (1 season, then canceled, 2025-)

One of the most amusing murder mystery shows in the tradition of Agatha Christie “whodunits,” this show had a brilliant first season, only to have subsequent seasons be suddenly canceled by Netflix. The tone is similar to the movies of Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Glass Onion, and the latest, Wake Up Dead Man)–with a “locked room” type of puzzle being solved by an outrageously eccentric detective (played by Uzo Aduba) who solves a murder in the White House.

HOTEL COSTIERA (1 season, 2025-)

If you looking for something uncomplicated that looks great on screen, especially during the dark, cold months of fall, this might be a show to check out. While the plot revolves around the adventures of Daniel, a hotel detective (and ex-Marine) who protects a family resort hotel and uncovers robbery plots, kidnappings, and other crimes, the action takes place on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. The views of Positano streets, sunsets over the Mediterranean, and vistas of the region’s gorgeous villas and hotels make the plot somewhat redundant, as long as you can just enjoy the colorful beauty of that region. Perfect “light watching” while planning the next vacation to warmer places.