In the Mood for Murder? Choose Your Plucky Acorn TV Lady Detective
Photos Courtesy of Acorn TV
No longer an upstart in the niche streaming space, Acorn TV has successfully made itself the home for cozy (mostly British, mostly lady-led) mysteries. In fact, it offers so many different cozy titles at this point that, pretty much no matter what kind of experience you might be in the mood for, there’s a plucky lady detective ready to answer the call. Whimsy? Got it. High fashion? That, too. High adventure? And how!
To that end, we’ve rounded up 10 of our favorite plucky lady detectives from Acorn TV exclusives below. Most are British, some are Australian, but none are gritty anti-heroines. This is to say that, while Rebecka Martinsson (Rebecka Martinsson), Vera Stanhope (Vera), and all the no-nonsense ladies of No Offence are all dependable (and watchable!) detectives in their own right, their place isn’t on this particular list.
Rules in place, let’s go!
The Young & the Restless
The Real (Storybook) Deal
Lady Detective: Matilda Stone, Queens of Mystery
Played by: Olivia Vinall (Series 1), Florence Hall (Series 2)
The only *official* police detective on this list, Queens of Mystery’s Mattie Stone is the one to watch if you like your investigators smart, sharply dressed, and a little bit melancholy. Could “smart, sharply dressed, and a little bit melancholy” easily describe half the detectives in Acorn’s non-cozy mystery stable? Sure! (Looking at you, Bang.) But in this particular case, Mattie Stone’s melancholy is wrapped up in a Candyland color palette, Juliet Stevenson’s Pushing Daisies-style storybook narration, and a missing-mother mystery that plays like a whimsical (if sad) fairy tale.
The Spitfire Driver
Lady Detective: Sam Stewart, Foyle’s War
Played by: Honeysuckle Weeks
Originally sent over to Detective Foyle on temporary loan from her wartime post in the Mechanized Transport Corps, military driver Sam Stewart is the gal to watch if you like your investigators bright, no-nonsense, and chattily ambitious. While the post-war seasons seem to lose sight of these core pieces of her character, she is easily the heart of the series’ original run.
The Groovy Independent Gal
Lady Detective: Peregrine Fisher, Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries
Played by: Geraldine Hakewill
As both a lady detective in historic Melbourne and a cozy mystery protagonist on Acorn TV, Miss Phryne Fisher set an impossibly high bar. How lucky are we all, then, that her fictional niece, one Ms. Peregrine Fisher, has the legs (and go-go boots) to leap high enough to match it. The Platonic ideal of “plucky,” Peregrine is your gal if you like your mysteries solved by a combination of brash confidence, flirtatious fun, and the regular reminder that being an Adventuress is as high a calling as anyone could hope to follow.
Her Gal Friday
Lady Detective: Dot Williams, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Old School)/Madison Feliciano, My Life is Murder (New School)
Played by: Ashleigh Cummings (Dottie), Ebony Vagulans (Madison)
Watch on Acorn TVWatch on Acorn TV
They may not be full-fledged detectives in their own right (yet), but in falling into the whirlwinds that are their respective lady detective mentors—the sultry Miss Fisher in the first case; the cranky Alexa Crowe in the second—both Dot (Cummings) and Madison (Vagulans) have found themselves on the path they were always meant for. If what you want is to watch someone seize that path, knowing in their bones it’s the right one for them, Madison’s your gal. If, on the other hand, you’re looking to take the slow road, watching as it gradually dawns on someone that their life could be so much bigger than what they had ever dreamed for themselves, well, Dottie’s right there, waiting for you to follow.
The Meddlesome and Mature
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