# Magpie Murders (2022)

> A book editor is drawn into real murders when the final chapter of a bestselling detective novel goes missing.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/108171

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 6
- Episode runtime: 44 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: mystery, drama, crime
- Created by: Anthony Horowitz, Peter Cattaneo, Anna Valdez Hanks
- Network: BritBox
- Cast: Conleth Hill, Lesley Manville, Jude Hill, Ian Lloyd Anderson, Karen Westwood, Tim McMullan, Matthew Beard, Alexandros Logothetis
- TMDB rating: 7.5/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13186264/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: cozy, wistful, suspenseful, unsettling, literary

## What critics say

Audiences rate the single season positively, praising its layered mystery and the way it weaves a 1950s village whodunit into a modern publishing thriller.

## Synopsis

Magpie Murders (2022) is a British six-episode limited series created by Anthony Horowitz, Peter Cattaneo and Anna Valdez Hanks for BritBox. Lesley Manville plays Susan Ryeland, a meticulous book editor whose quiet professional routine is upended when she receives the unfinished manuscript of a golden age style detective novel by the late author Alan Conway, played by Conleth Hill. As she reads the chapters, Susan notices that the fictional village murder mirrors real deaths tied to the author's life, and she must compare pages against people, places and gaps in the text. The engine of the story is her steady, obsessive hunt through typed pages, letters and interviews, with each episode alternating between the novel's sleuth Atticus Pund (Tim McMullan) and the present-day investigation. The result is a cozy yet unsettling mystery with an intricate literary puzzle, a wistful affection for classic whodunits, and a steadily rising sense of dread. Fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot, Broadchurch and Castle will find resonance in its blend of country house intrigue, literary sleuthing and grounded british drama.

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