Phyllis Logan stars in puzzling murder series with 5

‘Murder She Wrote meets Miss Marple on steroids’…

Next week 5 launch a crime drama series based on the best-selling books by American author Parnell Hall. BAFTA award-winning actress Phyllis Logan, best known for playing Mrs Hughes in the award-winning Downton Abbey, plays Cora Felton, the Puzzle Lady.

In the first episode, when a murder takes place in the sleepy market town of Bakerbury, the local police are baffled by a crossword puzzle left on the body. With their case going nowhere, they turn reluctantly to Cora Felton, a recent arrival in the area, whose fame as the eponymous Puzzle Lady suggests she can help DCI Hooper and the local police unravel the crossword clue and solve its first murder case.

As Cora throws herself into a murder case that has the town’s residents baffled, she starts to gather allies and enemies in equal measure. Tenacious journalist Anton Grant is as much captivated by Sherry, Cora’s niece, as he is Cora, while Anton’s ex-girlfriend, amoral lawyer Becky Baidwan, might help, or might throw them all under the bus. As Cora’s team assembles, it becomes apparent what they lack in experience, they make up for in attitude.

But the eccentric Cora isn’t who she claims to be. And while she digs into a cold case she thinks may be connected, she uncovers a dark truth behind another young woman’s death. Cora puts herself in the killer’s sights. Which is a dangerous place to be…

Speaking to TV Guide, Phyllis Logan notes,  “The programme is a bit like Murder She Wrote meets Miss Marple on steroids! It is a police procedural, but not as we know it and it’s full of great characters that add so much to it. Like DCI Hooper, played by Adam Best, who is just so funny, he made me laugh all the time.

“Our writer, Dominique Maloney wrote such a clever, funny script and that’s what I focused on for the whole shoot. Because, if you play the episodes as they are written, you just can’t go wrong.”

Murder Most Puzzling, starts at 8 pm on Thursday, June 19th, on 5