Mark Gatiss, bless him, has always looked like a man who might solve a murder over port and puns — and with Bookish, he finally gets to do just that, in his own tweedy, fog-bound fashion.
This six-part detective drama, created by Gatiss and written alongside the historian brain of Matthew Sweet, drops us gently into 1946 — a Britain still sweeping up the rubble and rationing food. Enter Gabriel Book, second-hand bookseller, part-time sleuth, and full-time embodiment of Gatiss’s lifelong flirtation with detective fiction.
Gatiss plays Book himself, with the same ecclesiastical dryness he brought to Sherlock, only now with a Churchill-signed letter in his pocket and a pipe clenched between his teeth like he’s chewing on a crossword. The letter — a charmingly ludicrous touch — allows him to poke around in any murder that takes his fancy, rendering him a kind of official amateur, a legitimised semi-Sherlock, if you will.
In the opening double-bill, titled Slightly Foxed (a pun so inevitable it might as well come with a cup of Earl Grey and a footnote), the first mystery emerges from a bombsite and plunges us straight into a veritable ragout of clues: prussic acid in a chemist’s cupboard, a head injury with no corresponding damage, and a jade figurine that wanders in and out of scenes like a prop that missed its own cue. Suspects range from Dickensian charladies (one is actually called Mrs Dredge, presumably because “Mrs Bleakweather” was already taken) to spivs, ARP wardens, and estranged daughters with perfect cheekbones and questionable motives.
The real mystery, of course, is how it all feels so familiar and so fresh at the same time. This is vintage crime TV, pressed and starched until it gleams. Gatiss doesn’t reinvent the detective drama so much as re-upholster it in the finest ration-era velvet. You get whistleblowing bobbies, powdered egg, and meat as luxury — and then, almost without warning, you’re wading through a tide of post-war melancholy: war widows with no pensions, young men shaped by prisons more metaphorical than literal, and society waiting with bated breath to see whether the new world will be better or just different.
The show’s central relationship — between Book and his wife Trottie (Polly Walker, still capable of playing elegance with a hint of moral danger) — is a carefully layered confection. Their marriage, we quickly learn, is of the lavender variety. They're best friends, not bedfellows. Book is a closeted gay man living in a time when that truth is illegal, and their young shop assistant Jack (Connor Finch, all nervous glances and tragic backstory) may well be more than just a charity case.
None of this is dwelled on with soap-opera melodrama. Instead, it breathes through the series like an emotional bass note, enriching everything without demanding the spotlight. Gatiss, often a somewhat chilly screen presence, finds a lovely warmth in Book — not exactly huggable, but human, and certainly less abrasive than many of his TV detective forebears. He doesn’t insult anyone unless they deserve it — and even then, he does it in prose.
One of the series’ strengths is that it knows exactly what it is: a classic detective show with an awareness of the tropes it’s using, but with none of the smugness. There are red herrings, coded letters, poisoned cocktails, and yes, arguments about apostrophes (which may be the only moment where the show stumbles, as no grammatical dispute has ever convincingly established anyone’s brilliance).
If there is a flaw, it’s that Gatiss, being clever and enthusiastic in equal measure, may have tried to fit a quart of subplots into a pint-sized runtime. Some characters — notably Sergeant Morris (Blake Harrison) and Nora (Buket Kömür) — exist mainly as narrative wallpaper, suggesting that even in the most lovingly crafted productions, someone always has to carry the tray and say nothing.
Still, the texture of the show is glorious. The mysteries are paced with the unhurried confidence of someone who’s read all of Agatha Christie’s works and knows exactly when to drop the poison into the tea. The design is sumptuous without being showy. The guest cast — Joely Richardson, Daniel Mays, Paul McGann — waltz in like royalty on loan from more expensive productions. And the entire thing is so meticulously made, you almost forget you’re watching a genre piece that, in lesser hands, might have felt like reheated apple pie.
But Gatiss gives it soul. Bookish is clever, but not cold; nostalgic, yet hip. It understands that the real joy of detective fiction lies not in shock twists or bloodshed, but in order restored, cleverness rewarded, and a nice cup of tea at the end. By the final episode, you don’t just want more mysteries — you want to live in that world a little longer. Which is just as well, with good sense deployed to commission a second series before the first one had even finished airing. If they’re smart, they’ll let Gatiss run with it for as long as he likes. Bookish may not be television that changes the world — but it’s television that makes the world a little more bearable. And in the end, isn’t that a mystery worth solving?
