Hetty Wainthropp Investigates - Series 1

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Patricia Routledge stars as Hetty Wainthropp in this BBC drama series. Hetty wakes on her 60th birthday and decides to become a private investigator. With assistance from a teenager called Geoffrey who she caught shoplifting and her husband Robert, combined with her own common sense, Hetty is confident she can solve any case. In 'The Bearded Lady' Hetty is busy setting up her detective agency. When investigating the death of a homeless person, Hetty and Geoffrey find they are stumbling upon a greater mystery. Anxious parents contact Hetty in the episode 'Eye Witness' when they believe their profoudly deaf son is missing. 'Fingers' sees Hetty keeping an eye on the family in England of the owner of her holiday hotel in Italy. They are being threatened and Hetty intends to find out by whom. Hetty and husband Robert investigate the alleged suicide of a former professional footballer in 'Widdershins'. 'High Profile' sees Hetty searching for Michael, a boy with learning difficulties. In 'Safe As Houses' Hetty is hired to find an old friend's foster daughter and investigates a series of arson attacks. From .co.uk ----------- Mystery buffs will find Hetty Wainthropp to be delightful and uniquely entertaining company. Hetty has just turned 60, but she is not about to "ride serene into the evening tide," as her doting husband so poetically puts it. "I'm not 60 and I never will be," Hetty procls. "I'm not a senior citizen." Hetty wants to matter, so she gets a job at her local Lancashire post office. But that wouldn't make for much of a miniseries. Before you can say "cheeky monkey," she has involved herself in a deadly case of pension-fund fraud, and made a splash on the front pages as a "Super Gran Sleuth." The redoubtable Patricia Routledge, best known as Hyacinth Bucket on the beloved Keeping Up Appearances ( /exec/obidos/search-handle-url/index=dvd-uk&field-keywords=keeping%20up%20appearances/%24%7B0%7D )), does lovely work as Hetty, who first appeared in David Cook's 1986 novel, Missing Persons (Cook co-wrote the six first-season episodes contained here). Hetty is not as quaint as Miss Marple, nor her cases as seamy as Jane Tennison's Prime Suspect mysteries. She is a formidable character in her own right, opening her own private detective agency, and recruiting a 17-year-old shoplifter (Dominic Monaghan from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) to be her "devoted sidekick." A rogue cop, a roving arsonist, and other unsavory characters are no match for the woman who won't rest until things add up. As one inspector grudgingly admits, "She's an extraordinary woman. She's no Miss Marple, but..." But, indeed. --Donald Liebenson