Crime fans must watch this exciting series before the sequel comes out

New viewers and old fans now have the rare chance to see the darkly comic BBC hit Magpie murders starting August 11, when PBS re-airs the original series ahead of the sequel’s debut, Moonflower MurdersAdapted from Anthony Horowitz Based on his own twisted best-selling novel, the series features numerous twists, more than a dozen wonderfully likely suspects, red herrings and a shocking ending that rivals the best of Agatha Christie. The two parallel storylines revolve around book editor Susan Ryeland, wonderfully played by Lesley Manvillebest known for her Oscar-nominated performance in 2017 The dark thread.

What is Magpie Mysteries about?

Shortly after the murder of their moneymaker, crime writer Alan Conway (Conleth Hill), Ryeland (an intelligent modern woman of a certain age who wears a leather jacket while zipping around in her bright red MG) receives the manuscript of his eagerly awaited new crime novel without the crucial final chapter. “Is there anything more useless than a crime novel with no ending?” she explains disgustedly. While trying to find the missing pages, Ryeland realises that the bitter and malicious author based the characters of his novel on his own family and acquaintancesrevealed their ugly secrets and his negative criticism of them, and gave them all a sufficient motive for his murder.

As she searches Conway’s manuscript for clues, Ryeland enters the village world of the mid-century novelWhere she encounters the fictional German detective Atticus Pündinitially in a dream. She begins to summon Pünd, at least in her imagination, to consult her as she tries to both solve Conway's crime (the beheading of Sir Magnus Pye at Pye Hall with a broadsword) and inadvertently get closer to Conway's desperate and dangerous real killer. Meanwhile, Ryeland must decide whether to take over the publishing house from her retiring boss or throw everything in the towel and move to Crete with her homesick Greek lover.

When it first aired in 2022 as part of PBS' Masterpiece Secrets, Magpie murders was a hit, receiving an IMDb rating of 7.5/10 and 5/5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes. In her review of the first broadcast ColliderEmily Bernard praises the credibility of screenwriter Horowitz and Manville's star performance but criticizes some of the time-consuming digressions in the plot. There are certainly some of them. Nevertheless, she concludes: “Magpie murders is a very entertaining crime thriller with enough revelations and twists to keep you guessing until the end.”

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Lesley Manville’s “Moonflower Murders” just got a big update

Timothy McMullan also appears in the series.

What are the magpies in Magpie Murders?

At the beginning of Magpie Murders, Susan and her publisher Charles recite the following nursery rhyme:

One for the sadness,

Two for joy,

Three for a girl,

Four for a boy,

Five for silver,

Six for gold,

Seven for a secret,

You must never find out.

The rhyme refers to how many magpies do you have to see together for your wish to come true. It is also the name of the seven chapters of Alan Conway's book, and it is the seventh chapter that is missing. Artists often use symbols, and in Magpie murders, Magpies are omnipresentchatters derisively to itself, sounding like the clatter of a snake from above to the people below, and first appears above the door of Susan's townhouse as she settles in for the weekend to first read the draft of Conway's novel. The magpie is a multi-colored member of the crow family, and they are omnivores, scavengers, and predators, like owls, often eating the young of other birds, not unlike the way Alan Conway treats his family (and vice versa).

It is therefore useful to note that Magpie murders is about betrayal. At some point, almost every character in the series, except Ryeland and Pünd, cheats on someone they love; especially Alan Conway. Conway betrays himself by not becoming the serious writer he wanted to beAs Pünd says, “There are very few good motives for murder: fear, envy, anger and desire.” Like envy and desire, betrayal (and the desire for revenge) can also be a primary motive.

The series also focuses on the interaction between the inner and outer world: reality and mind. Director Peter Cattaneo handles the shifts between parallel worlds with ease and style, emphasizing the idea that art imitates life. Both the author Conway and the character Pünd suffer from terminal cancer, but Conway has Pünd handle the diagnosis with a grace and humor that Conway could never have managed.

“Magpie Murders” takes up the satire of the crime genre

Part of the fun of Magpie murders is that the supporting actors of the series play a double role as very, very thinly disguised suspects in both Conway's murder and the murder in his novel, adding a layer of entertaining complexity that follows the logic of Horowitz's book. For example, Pippa Haywood shines as the pitiful and bitter sisters Claire and Clarrisa of the two murder victims. Actor Daniel Mays is fun as an inspector in both worlds, as well as Lorcan Cranitch both as Susan's estranged father, Max Ryeland, and as the imperious Sir Magnus Pye, master of the fictional Pye Hall. Matthew Beard stands out as both Conway's moody friend and Pünd's not-so-bright assistant. All of the thinly-veiled twin performances are entertaining and appropriate for their different milieus. Everything meshes together, everyone has a connection to the other.

In the solo role of the unsympathetic crime writer Alan Conway, Conleth Hill receives the award for being wonderfully despicable and worthy of a good murder. As Bernard emphasizes in her review, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie eventually got tired of their fictional heroes and wanted to kill her. Conway's loathing of Pünd reaches a new low in the shocking (in more ways than one) ending. The result is a truly enigmatic and suspenseful mystery and a deeply dark but hilarious satire of the crime genre.

Magpie murders is now repeated every Sunday in the US on PBS. The entire series can also be streamed on Prime Video.

Watch on Prime Video