Five Cozy Mystery Series to Binge in January

By Chris Revelle | TV | January 5, 2024 |

By Chris Revelle | TV | January 5, 2024 |

The January after the end of a year can be a strange time. People nurse hangovers from the holidays, recommit to working out regularly, give up booze or meat or weed for a month. People crash back down into day-jobs after a time off that reminds you what life could be without labor consuming half of it. People feel generally exhausted in the wake of a New Year and with winter blowing onward, it can create doldrums and malaise. When the sun sets at 4:30pm and the morning you wake looks as dark as the night you laid down to sleep, time can take on a slippery nature. So what is to be done with the cold and the dark and the drudgery? It’s time to get cozy!

Cozy mysteries (or “soft-boiled mysteries”) are exactly what they say on the tin: a mystery story that’s nonetheless very cozy and centers on an amateur sleuth that is not a police officer or law-enforcement agent of any kind investigating and solving a mystery, usually alongside a friend or rival in law enforcement. Despite dealing with crime and murder, cozy mysteries are not usually very heavy or dark and are instead rather light. In my experience, they usually cast a woman with a big personality as the brilliant but amateur sleuth and a grumpy by-the-book man as the law enforcement friend. I love a femme with a big head of steam coming in hot and clashing (sometimes romantically!) with her exasperated masculine foil who will grumble but is absolutely going to help her out. So to all of my fellow cozy comrades who could use a great mystery series to pass the doldrums of winter, here are five cozy mysteries you might love!

Sister Boniface Mysteries (Amazon Prime, Roku, Britbox)

This is a spin-off from another great cozy mystery series, Father Brown. Sister Boniface Mysteries is one the most feather-light things I’ve ever seen. Sister Boniface is an English Catholic nun in the 1960s who serves in a convent in the fictional Cotswolds village of Great Slaughter, called such for its curiously high body-count. It’s Nuns Having Fun but with murder: Sister Boniface has a Ph.D. in forensic science, so when she’s not doing religious stuff or making wine (queen!), she helps the local police with the many murders they need to solve. Boniface also tools around on a Vespa, and it’s adorable! Her fellow nuns are adorable, the cases of the week are adorable, everything on this show is adorable! Boniface as a character is pretty funny because even when she’s talking about bloody death, she remains a bright and perky presence.

Miss Scarlet and the Duke (PBS, Hulu, Amazon Prime)

Miss Eliza Scarlet is the clever and determined daughter of a private investigator in Victorian London who is maybe too headstrong for her own good, but skilled at getting out of the sticky situations she gets herself in. When events conspire to push her into taking over her father’s business and offices, Eliza reaches out to William Wellington, a childhood friend who saw Mr. Scarlet as a father figure himself, who’s now an Inspector for Scottland yard. Featuring a theme song that seems perfect for selling Kim Crawford chardonnay, Miss Scarlet and the Duke is a great murder-of-the-week series that doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Eliza and William work together on each case, usually after she pesters her way in to William’s chagrin, and figure out the solution together while their romantic tension remains at a constant simmer. As is the way of things, the will-they-won’t-they vibe gets stretched out a bit far and it’s just about every episode someone scoffs in disbelief, “a woman detective?!?!?!”, but it’s fun. The show complicates the cozy formula by making Eliza a bit of an asshole and by making William a big fan of sex workers, but those details end up functioning as the obstacles to their attraction than anything too serious. Special mention must be paid to Eliza’s friend/housekeeper Ivy who is the kind of sensical morality pet who will remind Eliza of her better nature, but will still lie to the cops on Eliza’s behalf.

Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries (Acorn, Roku, Amazon Prime)

This show was made for me: Phryne Fisher is a lady of leisure in 1920s Melbourne, Australia with a flapper bob and an incredible wardrobe to go with her fabulous town home. Phryne is aristocratic but wild like Luisa Casati, preferring to hang out with socialists and artists than with other upper-crust types. Every episode, Phryne finds her way to the scene of a murder where the stolid Dectective Inspector Jack Robinson is investigating. Jack and Phryne have crazy chemistry and are clearly quite attracted to one another. They’re a fantastic pair of foils with Phryne being a larger-than-life motormouth and Jack being the exasperated straight-man. While the show keeps stoking their slow-burn romance, Phyrne helps herself to the hottie buffet and barely an episode goes by without her bedding a hunk who will be gone by the next episode. If he has a sexy accent and a great ass, Phryne is on him. Also of note is the truly delightful supporting characters like the maid Dot who’s learning feminism, sweet officer Hugh who is instantly besotted with Dot, Dr. Mac the Katharine Hepburn lesbian, and an imperious aunt played by global treasure Miriam Margolyes.

Poker Face (Peacock)

I sang this show’s praises as the 4th best show of 2023, and here I am doing it again! This Natasha Lyonne-starring howcatchem is a wonderful homage to Columbo with a new murder in a new town to solve every episode and a rotating cast of spectacular guest stars. Lyonne is perfectly cast as Charlie Kale, a human lie detector on the run from an organized crime boss who wanders into trouble wherever she goes. Charlie speaks with a whiskey-and-cigarettes voice and refers to herself as “Lady Galahad,” fitting for how she’s always trying to do the right thing, lawful or otherwise. The cozy nature of the show is in knowing before Charlie does exactly how the crime was committed and in knowing Charlie will always come out of the situation swaggering and in how the visual style of the show evokes the classic mystery-of-the-week shows of the 70s and 80s.

Murder, She Wrote (Peacock, Freevee)

Sorry, but no one’s done it better than the GOAT: author and peerless sleuth Jessica Fletcher played by Angela Landsbury. When it comes to cozy mysteries, this is my polestar, my constant. Jessica is a mystery writer who, whether at home or literally anywhere on earth, is always running into an old friend or distant relation and absolutely always investigating a murder that just happened. Nothing is happening in this world that Jessica Fletcher can’t insert herself into and there’s simply no mystery she can’t solve. Spotting the guest stars is a total scream: oh here’s Linda Hamilton and her tennis pro boyfriend Bryan Cranston and there’s Leslie Neilsen and Florence Henderson appearing multiple times as different characters and wow is that baby George Clooney and baby Megan Mulally?! The show ran from 1984-1996, so you best believe there are kooky wigs and outfits aplenty! It’s simply the best. It’s what we watch in my home when we’re bored; Jessica never steers me wrong.