Puzzling new crime drama is where Prue Leith meets Taggart

Philip Cunnington on Murder Most Puzzling

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Channel 5's new crime drama Murder Most Puzzling (Channel 5, Thurs, 8pm) is, in itself, a bit of a puzzle.

At first glance, it bears all the hallmarks of the 'cosy crime' boom - an English country town with the comfortingly bucolic name of Bakerbury, an amateur sleuth in late middle age, sundry busy-bodies and bumpkins.

But after a sickly-sweet, pastel-hued opening scene, it takes a sudden u-turn to a rain-sodden graveyard, where the shoeless body of a young woman has been found, murdered.

And the jarring notes don't stop there.

Our sharp-witted crime-buster, Cora Felton (Phyllis Logan), is known as 'the Puzzle Lady', on account of her being a famous crossword-compiler with a nice - and apparently lucrative - sideline in baked goods.

But when we first encounter her, she is slumped asleep in her car after a drunken night out - thinking nothing of drink-driving through the lanes surrounding Bakerbury to her country home.