I wouldn't bet against this lovable lie-buster

CRIME doesn't pay, they say, but it can do on TV. Get the format right - a Morse, a Midsomer, a Death In Paradise - and you're in production for decades.

- with GARRY BUSHELL

I'm already addicted to Poker Face 2 where Russian Doll star Natasha Lyonne plays beer-drinking, vape-smoking Charlie Cale, a former casino cocktail waitress with the uncanny ability to tell if somebody is lying - not so much Murder She Wrote as Murder She Sussed.

If only she could host Question Time! Still on the run from the Mob, each episode finds Charlie in a different location with a new cash-in-hand job and the chance to solve a fresh homicide. Like Columbo, we know whodunnit from the start, the hook is how will she nab 'em?

This second season, running on Sky, has seen our idiosyncratic heroine kidnapped by mobster Beatrix Hasp (played by Cheers star Rhea "Carla" Perlman), working as a ball girl at a minor league baseball club, rescuing a framed alligator and deducing which of five identical sisters played by Cynthia Erivo was the wrong'un.

As well as being resourceful, observant, and plain-speaking, Charlie is also fun to be around - as long as you can put up with her "voice like a rusty clarinet".

Poker Face does acknowledge its debt to Columbo - US TV's greatest detective - in its opening sequence, paying homage with a thick 1970s orange font.

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