If you’ve been feeling a strong need for some dour, caustic, British crime drama, you’re in luck—Northumbria’s favourite sleuth is back on our screens, with season 11 of Vera now streaming on ABC iview.
Based on the hugely popular series of novels by Anne Cleeves, Vera sees two-time Academy Award winner Brenda Blethyn as the titular DCI Vera Stanhope: the irascible, rumpled, razor-sharp hero of the series who confronts all the evil that the picturesque Northumbrian countryside has to offer. Like so many Midsomer Murders-adjacent British crime series, Vera’s Northumbria has a much higher homicide rate than real-world statistics would have you believe, meaning our dogged detective is assured of finding at least one hapless corpse per episode.
To be fair, Vera is a crime series of the cozy variety, and the protagonist has more in common with Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple than any of your grimmer, more noir-inflected detectives, despite her dour outlook on life. That doesn’t mean things don’t get gruesome, though. In he first episode of this season a well-liked local builder is found brutally beaten to death, and Vera and her team are tasked with investigating the pretty obvious murder. Things get murky, though, when it turns out the victim was due to testify against another local, an aspiring footballer, in an assault case. However, family grievances and old grudges in the mix mean it’s not as simple as connecting the dots.
Bloody murder, British hospitality, and the rugged beauty of the windswept Northumbrian moors are the order of the day as the implacable Vera runs down clue after clue in pursuit of justice. It’s a familiar model but a solid one, so if you’re in the mood for some old school British sleuthing, point yourself towards iview—and maybe put a pot of tea on, while you’re at it.
