Bookish: delightful period detective drama from Mark Gatiss

Mark Gatiss surrounded by books, leans on a desk with a typewriter next to him

Mark Gatiss stars as Gabriel Book, a 'super-sleuth' detective

(Image credit: Nicolas Velter / Nicollas Velter)

published 24 July 2025

By this stage, you may feel you've had enough of "cosy crime", said Lucy Mangan in The Guardian, a genre that has been rather overdone lately.

But this six-part series, set in 1946, is a standout pleasure (on U&Alibi). Mark Gatiss – who created and co-wrote the series – stars as Gabriel Book, an antiquarian bookseller with brilliant crime-solving abilities. He has performed some heroic but "mysterious" service during the War, and carries a letter from Churchill which grants him permission to take part in police investigations.

Book is "a super-sleuth without a superpower", said Benji Wilson in The Telegraph: his secret is simply that he is very well-read, and as a result he understands "what makes people tick". His cases take him from Whitechapel Prison to a luxury hotel, and follow an Agatha Christie-style formula – which, though hackneyed, remains reliably compelling. Book is also gay, hiding in "a lavender marriage": this, pre-decriminalisation, risks compromising him, adding a crucial element of jeopardy to the proceedings. It's not "gritty" or "game-changing", but "Bookish" is great fun. And its starry cast – which includes Paul McGann, Daniel Mays and Joely Richardson – "adds extra lustre".

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As a veteran of "Sherlock", Gatiss has form with detective drama, said Carol Midgley in The Times. This one is so full of genre clichés, it shouldn't work: but he is brilliant in it, and the dialogue – particularly between Book and his wife – is superb. The show has "depth, wit, campness, a gorgeous 1946 aesthetic – and dark bite". What's not to like?