These shows aren’t truly cozy crime: they’re darker, grittier and more emotionally heavy than the comforting whodunits this site is built around. We cover them anyway because plenty of cozy crime fans watch them too, with the same spoiler-free character guides.
2010 · 4 seasons · BBC
A modern reimagining of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective for 21st-century London, following the brilliant, emotionally detached consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and army veteran Dr John Watson as they form an unlikely, unbreakable partnership solving baffling crimes for the Metropolitan Police.
2005 · 12 seasons
et in Washington, D.C., Bones follows Dr Temperance "Bones" Brennan, a brilliant but socially awkward forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian Institution
2013 · 3 seasons · ITV
Set in the fictional Dorset seaside town of Broadchurch, the series begins when the body of eleven-year-old Danny Latimer is discovered on the beach, plunging the tight-knit coastal community into grief, suspicion, and scandal.
2008 · 8 seasons · BBC
Set in North East England during the 1960s, Inspector George Gently follows the eponymous incorruptible detective who relocates from London to Northumberland
2021 · 2 seasons · BBC
Annika follows the sharp, witty and enigmatic DI Annika Strandhed as she heads up a new specialist Marine Homicide Unit (MHU) that is tasked with investigating the unexplained, brutal, and seemingly unfathomable murders that wash up in the waterways of Scotland
2007 · 9 seasons · ITV
Set in Oxford, Lewis follows Detective Inspector Robbie Lewis as he returns to work five years after the death of his mentor, Inspector Morse.
1992 · 15 seasons · ITV
Set in the fictional South Midlands town of Denton, A Touch of Frost follows Detective Inspector William Edward "Jack" Frost, a scruffy, unconventional, old-school copper whose talent for solving crimes is matched only by his talent for clashing with bureaucratic superiors.
2013 · 10 seasons · BBC
Set amid the dramatic, windswept landscapes of Scotland's remote Shetland Islands, Shetland follows the local police team as they investigate murders within a close-knit island community where everyone knows everyone else's business—and secrets.
2015 · 6 seasons · ITV
Unforgotten follows a team of detectives, initially led by DCI Cassie Stuart and DI Sunny Khan, as they investigate cold-case murders. Each series focuses on a single decades-old case.
2008 · 4 seasons · BBC
Kenneth Branagh stars as Kurt Wallander, a weary, diabetic and increasingly disillusioned police inspector in the small town of Ystad in southern Sweden. His investigations into brutal crimes in the apparently sleepy backwaters of Skåne
2013 · 3 seasons · BBC
Set in the coastal town of Aberystwyth and the rugged, mountainous landscapes of Ceredigion in mid-Wales, Hinterland follows DCI Tom Mathias, a brooding detective who relocates from London's Metropolitan Police to rebuild his life amid Wales's stark and beautiful terrain.
2017 · 6 seasons · BBC
War veteran Cormoran Strike operates a struggling private detective agency from a cramped London office, taking on complex cases that have baffled the police, aided by his assistant Robin Ellacott who proves far more capable than her temporary secretary role suggests. As they solve increasingly dangerous cases together, Strike battles his physical and psychological war wounds whilst an unspoken attraction grows between the mismatched pair, complicated by Robin's engagement and Strike's determination to keep their relationship strictly professional.
2022 · 2 seasons · ITV
Set in Scotland and based on Val McDermid's acclaimed novels, Karen Pirie follows a young, fearless Detective Sergeant working for Police Scotland's Historic Cases Unit as she tackles cold case murders that have remained unsolved for decades.
2000 · 4 seasons · ITV
In Edinburgh, Detective Inspector John Rebus is a maverick who bends the rules to get at the truth, and his methods regularly put him at odds with his superiors.
1994 · 5 seasons · ITV
Set in and around Truro in Cornwall, Wycliffe follows Detective Superintendent Charles Wycliffe, a quiet, thoughtful, and astute observer of human nature who solves murders across the picturesque Cornish coastline whilst navigating the internal politics of his own department.
2021 · 6 seasons · ITV
Set in Brighton and Hove on England's south coast, Grace follows Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, a hard-working, dogged police officer haunted by the mysterious disappearance of his wife Sandy years earlier.
2018 · 1 season · BBC
Set in 1933, several years after his heyday, an older, greyer, and largely forgotten Hercule Poirot begins receiving taunting letters threatening murder from a mysterious sender who signs themselves only "A.B.C."
2020 · 4 seasons · ITV
Set against the canals, galleries, and cosmopolitan sophistication of contemporary Amsterdam, Van der Valk follows Commissaris Piet van der Valk, a brilliant but cynical Dutch detective who solves baffling murders using insightful human observation and natural street smarts.
2024 · 2 seasons · Channel 5
DCI Ellis and her partner DS Harper are parachuted into failing police investigations across northern England, tackling seemingly unsolvable cases at different stations where their arrival is often met with resistance, hostility, and institutional barriers.
2022 · 3 seasons · BBC
Set in Aberdeen, Scotland, Granite Harbour follows Davis Lindo, a former Royal Military Police sergeant whose dreams of becoming a New Scotland Yard detective are dashed when he's despatched north to train as a Detective Constable in the unfamiliar "Granite City.
2026 · 1 season · ITV
