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Welcome to the daily briefing, move along and take a seat, quick as you can, please. As you may see from the ludicrously overpopulated suspect wall behind me, we’re on the lookout for someone very special here. These particular characters are all known killers, in that they’ve been killing it on screen as British TV detectives, some of them for decades. We’re here to find their boss, the kingpin, the very best of the best.
Intelligence says that this character is British, so please discount your Columbos, Sarah Lunds, Maigrets, Poirots and Wallanders, even if they are known suspects. We’re also confident that this person works mostly alone, so double-acts of the Dalziel and Pascoe, Dempsey and Makepeace, Scott and Bailey, Rosemary and Thyme or Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) variety are not to be included in the search. Nor are criminal profilers, otherwise we’d obviously just collar Fitz from Cracker and stop looking.
Something to remember in our hunt is that this lot is the very finest, they’re the top of the TV detective iceberg, some names you may expect to see on this list are absent because, well, the Death in Paradise lot are in an overseas territory and therefore out of our jurisdiction, and also 30 is as many A4 printouts that fit on the board. Get to work, people, let’s find the best British TV detective character of all time. Chop chop.
30. Jackson Brodie – Case Histories
Make no mistake, Kate Atkinson’s series of Jackson Brodie detective novels are among the best in the business (hooray that there’s a new one coming out this year). The task of translating her rich characterisation, dark plots, ingenious construction, and involving, entertaining prose to screen was a tall order, and even if this short-lived adaptation didn’t quite live up to it, Jason Isaacs’ Brodie still deserves his spot on this list. Drily funny, kind, capable and well-read Yorkshireman Brodie may be adrift in Edinburgh, but he can take a beating, always gets his man, and is nice to dogs, which is a tick in several columns for me.
29. DI Edmund Reid – Ripper Street
Over five series of this late 19th century London-set crime drama, Matthew Macfadyen’s sad-eyed workaholic DI Edmund Reid gained an army of devotees – enough to bring it back from the dead on Prime Video following the BBC cancellation. Reid was far from the only favourite in Ripper Street‘s packed cast, which also featured Jerome Flynn, Adam Rotherberg and Myanna Buring, but the lead character’s gradual journey from mourning to peace gave this show an emotional throughline missing from other depictions of the famously unsolved Whitechapel murders.
28. Det. Marcella Backland – Marcella
If only Marcella didn’t have to suspect herself of having committed all the murders she investigates, she’d get a lot more done. A traumatic incident in her past left this London detective with a psychiatric condition that causes her to sporadically enter a fugue state from which she wakes up clueless and, more often than not, covered in blood. It’s a complicating factor among many complicating factors in Marcella’s life, including her kids, ex-husband, and maverick reputation. Anna Friel is terrific in the role, and sells even the pulpiest of plot developments with total commitment.
27. Cormoran Strike – Strike
Tom Burke is very good as throwback TV detective Cormoran Strike, the scruffy, ex-military PI and amputee with a past straight out of the gossip pages of Tatler. He makes a great romantic hero, especially in tandem with his temp receptionist-turned-colleague Robin (Holliday Grainger), and is a formidable presence in the face of bad guys. Investigating lurid mysteries set in the mildly satirical worlds of celebrity and privilege, he’s pleasingly rough ‘n’ ready, drily funny and sad-eyed.
26. Father Brown – Father Brown
Does cosy crime get any cosier? (Well, perhaps it does in spin-off Sister Boniface Mysteries, but really, that was meant rhetorically.) This adaptation of GK Chesterton’s famous stories about a sleuthing man of the cloth is a great reimagining and Mark Williams is similarly strong casting as the lead. Mild-mannered, polite, and – in the tradition of Miss Marple – underestimated to the extent that he can use his persona as a kind of key to open otherwise locked doors, he’s a relaxing, fun take on a classic. There’s a time for grit when it comes to detective stories, and then there’s a time for Father Brown.
25. Henrietta Wainthropp – Hetty Wainthropp Investigates
Speaking of cosiness… This 1990s series may be synonymous with twee for some, but underestimate Dame Patricia Routledge at your peril. The woman’s a comedy dynamo and she powers this light-hearted series with skill and precision. An amateur PI armed with a handbag and a future Hobbit (in sidekick Geoffrey, played by Dominic Monaghan) instead of a gun and badge, Hetty is Lancashire’s Miss Marple. She’s more likely to be found tracking down a long-lost sibling than investigating a bloody murder, but thanks to a knack for disguise and the genius of Routledge, she always gets the job done.
24. Brother Cadfael – Cadfael
By all accounts, Edith Pargeter’s The Cadfael Chronicle novels are the real prize here, but for those of us who, like me, are yet to read them, this ITV series starring Derek Jacobi as the sleuthing monk was a gateway drug into the historical mystery genre. Yes, it’s now dated and yes, it feels unnaturally stagey – closer to something made in the 1970s than the 1990s – but Jacobi is… well, he’s Derek Jacobi. As a 12th century Benedictine monk with a military past and a nose for sniffing out liars, Jacobi is unassailable.
23. Det Supt Peter Boyd – Waking the Dead
One for fans of Unforgotten, here. Like that ITV drama, this BBC series centres on a unit of cold case detectives led by Trevor Eve’s irascible Det Supt Boyd. A man struggling with his anger issues as well as the historical disappearance of his son (and its emotional aftermath), Boyd is stern and confrontational, but with decent morals underneath his carapace, and Eve is equal to everything asked of him by this long-running role.
22. DS Ellie Miller – Broadchurch
The minute DS Ellie Miller threatened to piss in a cup and throw it at David Tennant, the nation’s hearts were won. Well, technically she didn’t threaten to throw it at David Tennant, but at DI Alec Hardy, the rather generic sad-emotionally-distant-male-detective-haunted-by-the-case-he-never-solved played by David Tennant in Broadchurch, the ITV crime drama that became a national obsession for a few weeks back in 2013. The second and third series were a case of diminishing returns, but in that first run, Olivia Colman’s Ellie Miller in her yellow cagoule was resplendent. It’s the rule of The Bear: adding Colman to anything makes it better by a long chalk.
21. DI John Rebus – Rebus
Yes, whippersnapper Richard Rankin is currently doing the rounds as a younger (but no less cynical and stubborn) John Rebus in this year’s BBC Scotland reboot, but Ken Stott has to be the TV Rebus of record. Taking over from John Hannah, who’d smoothed out the character’s rougher edges, Stott put them all back in and brought Ian Rankin’s music-obsessed, headstrong detective to life.
20. DI Jimmy Perez – Shetland
Douglas Henshall’s calm, thoughtful approach to case-solving as bereaved DI Perez in the first seven series of the BBC’s Shetland was the exact right fit. A shoutier detective would be drowned out by this show’s dramatic scenery, but brooding on moody clifftops wrapped in knitwear and a flappy coat, Perez made viewers lean in. He used emotional intelligence to unpick lies and solve crimes, the gentle steadiness being part of the whole attraction.
19. George Gently – Inspector George Gently
Scotland Yard detective George Gently stands for ideals that felt old-fashioned even in this 1960s-set long-running crime series. Truth, justice, integrity… There aren’t many on the force with Gently’s moral compass, which is why the threat of his ever-imminent retirement hangs over these eight series. After all, where would DS Bacchus and DS Coles be without their mentor? Played with likeable toughness by The Professionals’ Martin Shaw, Gently’s solid as a rock with a copper’s instincts.
18. Det Ch Supt Foyle – Foyle’s War
An excellent detective cut from the ‘upright men standing against rot and venality’ cloth, Christopher Foyle battled spivs, lowlifes and fascists trying to take advantage of a country at war, while also battling his own grief. Set in the 1940s and created by Anthony Horowitz for ITV as a replacement for the Inspector Morse Sunday night two-hour slot, Foyle’s War is a complex crime drama about a complex time in British history. Michael Kitchen gives the role gravitas, and is surrounded by a very likeable cast, from Honeysuckle Weeks’ driver Sam, to Anthony Howell’s DS Milner.
17. Jack Frost – A Touch of Frost
DI Frost isn’t someone you’d want to work or live with, but he’s someone you would definitely want solving your murder; his methods are slapdash and his paperwork is all over the shop, but he always gets his perp. It took the British public a long time to accept actor David Jason in any other role than that of legendary comedy character Del Boy from Only Fools and Horses, but William ‘Jack’ Frost was the part to do it. Jason played the cynical, scruffy maverick for a whopping 18 years on ITV. Think of him as a precursor to Slow Horses spook Jackson Lamb.
16. DSU Stella Gibson – The Fall
Steely and precise, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson is a pro whose controlled approach pays dividends in the search for a Belfast serial strangler. In the cat-and-mouse game that develops between Gibson and killer Paul Spector (played by Jamie Dornan) over three series of Allan Cubitt’s The Fall, she’s never without a move to play. Her chic, sleek, collected manner makes her an unforgettable presence in crime TV.
15. DCI Cassie Stuart – Unforgotten
Cassie’s story in ITV cold case drama Unforgotten was about the personal toll that murder investigation takes on police officers, and who better to put that struggle on screen than emotional lightning rod Nicola Walker? She made sure that viewers felt every bit of Cassie’s pain and frustration as Stuart and partner Sunny (Sanjeev Bhaskar) methodically unwove lies and followed the evidence and their instincts to the truth.
14. DCI Gene Hunt – Life on Mars
Sam Tyler or Alex Drake? Neither – Gene Hunt is the most memorable detective from BBC fantasy crime dramas Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. He’s the one with the catchphrase (“Fire up the Quattro”) and the adoring fans – some of whom, granted, may not have been enjoying his retrograde 1970s and 1980s chauvinism with knowing irony. Played unforgettably by Philip Glenister in two mind-bending crime classics, Gene Hunt’s punch-first-ask-questions-later swagger left its mark.
13. DCI Tom Barnaby – Midsomer Murders
Playing one of the greatest British TV detectives is an achievement; to play two is… greedy? Let’s settle on remarkable. One of the two ‘Johns’ to have carried out this feat (see also: Thaw), John Nettles went from a decade of playing tortured Jersey heartthrob Bergerac to 14 years of playing DCI Barnaby, the least haunted detective on television. Barnaby stands out among TV detectives for not being mired in addiction or tragedy. He has a mercifully un-murdered wife and daughter, and a loving home life so uneventful you’d call it quaint. Avuncular, patient and reliable, he’s the sanity in the midst of Midsomer‘s murder-beset madness.
12. Jim Bergerac – Bergerac
Like DI Perez in Shetland, Jim Bergerac was a troubled heartthrob in a beautiful part of the British Isles, and for a decade from 1981 to 1991, he was Mr Sunday Night. Played by John Nettles in his original incarnation (a modern reboot is on the way written by Toby Whithouse and starring Damien Moloney as the lead), Bergerac was a former police detective-turned-PI with a tragic history of alcoholism, divorce and casual leather jackets. He drove a Triumph Roadster, fought Nazis, was popular with the ladies, and solved crime on the beautiful isle of Jersey – what more could you ask for?
11. DCI Vera Stanhope – Vera
A brilliant mind resides underneath Vera’s Paddington Bear hat; there are few TV detectives as meticulous or sharp as DCI Stanhope, scourge of North-East criminals. No-nonsense, down-to-earth, and a dog with a bone when it comes to solving cases, Ann Cleeves’ character, as played on ITV by Brenda Blethyn, doesn’t suffer fools gladly and gets the job done. More a sartorial cousin of crumpled Columbo than a chic detective like Stella Gibson, Stanhope’s got more important things to think about than sharp suits and dry cleaning – catching bad guys for one.
10. Jonathan Creek – Jonathan Creek
Jonathan Creek‘s unique selling point was supposed to be that it wasn’t about the detective, or even about the criminals – it was all about the puzzles. Each episode, a cleverly constructed ‘impossible’ crime would be unravelled by magic expert Creek, who’d fascinate viewers with his grasp of illusions and locked room mysteries, as provided by creator David Renwick. The only thing wrong with this plan? Casting Alan Davies, who was fascinating in his own right and whose wit and charm put Creek and his reluctant romantic entanglements centre stage.
9. Supt. Ted Hastings – Line of Duty
How dare Line of Duty spend a whole series (five, if you’re looking for the one to skip) teasing the possibility that Sir Ted Hastings, played by Adrian Dunbar, could be a bent copper? The man is the very definition of probity and moral good. As the head of police corruption investigation unit AC-12, he’s the nation’s law-daddy, a twinkle-eyed bastion of doing things properly and by the book, mother of god. The Guv’s lust for justice is only matched by the heights of police corruption in his nameless city, and by his fondness for folksy idioms. We salute you, Ted, never change.
8. DCI Jim Taggart – Taggart
A tough carapace hid a… well, pretty tough Glaswegian copper in DCI Jim Taggart, a character who left such an impact on British TV that his series continued to bear his name long after actor Mark McManus’ premature death in 1994. Taggart’s battle-worn, seen-it-all attitude became the template for many a TV detective since. Now often memorialised with a piss-taking “there’s bin a muhduh” punchline – if he were still around today, you wouldn’t say it to his face.
7. DI ‘Jack’ Regan – The Sweeney
Move over, Dixon of Dock Green, the 1970s brought a new kind of police drama to British TV – action-filled, violent, cynical and led by a man prepared to cut corners to get results: the flying squad’s Jack Regan. Crucially, Regan’s rule-bending was only ever a matter of expediency and never to line his own pockets. John Thaw brought a muscly determination to the role, the spirit of which could still be seen in his much more erudite next great British TV detective character.
(And yes, Dennis Waterman’s Carter should rightly get a mention too, but we said no double-acts, and if you had to choose, there’s no competition. Regan’s your man.)
6. Sgt Catherine Cawood – Happy Valley
I’d say we should put Sgt Catherine Cawood‘s face on stamps and stand her on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in celebration of her greatness, but seeing as she didn’t even want a leaving do when she retired, I can’t imagine she’d enjoy the attention. As played by Sarah Lancashire in three perfect series of Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley, this no-nonsense Yorkshire grandmother is a proper policing hero. On the outside, she’s formidable, spiky, sarcastic, and cynical. Inside, she’s kind like you wouldn’t believe. Just don’t get on the wrong side of her.
5. DCI John Luther – Luther
Has any TV detective crossed the line more times than John Luther? Perhaps, but none quite so entertainingly. Idris Elba is legendary as the Serious Crime cop who cuts an impressive silhouette while beating up twisted bad guys on the streets of London. Luther’s unpredictability is his secret weapon, both as a copper and as a TV character. In Neil Cross’ psychological thriller, you never know what he’ll do, with whom he’ll team up, or what emotional devastation he’ll be put through next. A modern classic.
4. DCI Jane Tennison – Prime Suspect
Helen Mirren was awarded her damehood for services to the arts, and while her illustrious stage career speaks for itself, surely it was her work as Jane Tennison that cinched it. 15 feature-length episodes of Lynda LaPlante’s acclaimed series were made between 1991 and 2006, each one showing Tennison wading through a cesspit of sexism and bigotry as she banged heads together and stood up for herself while fighting to uncover the truth for victims of crime. It’s no wonder she drank.
3. Miss Jane Marple – Miss Marple
One of Agatha Christie’s two legendary detective characters (the other being Belgian sadly precluded him from this list of British gumshoes, but he’d have been a cert for Top Five too if he could have rustled up say, a Scottish grandmother), Miss Marple is… well, she’s Marple, the woman, the legend. She’s St Mary Mead’s sharp-minded sorter-out of lies from truth, whose age, gender, and harmless aspect are a skeleton key that let her go anywhere unnoticed. A queen among literary and TV detectives, she’s been played by many actors, but Joan Hickson (see video above) is the only one said to have had the stamp of approval even from Christie herself.
2. Morse – Inspector Morse/Endeavour
John Thaw’s second appearance on this list of greats is of course, for Inspector Morse, the creation of novelist Colin Dexter. Unusually (prequels often not being much cop, if you’ll excuse the pun), Thaw shares the accolade with Shaun Evans of series Endeavour – set in Morse’s early career as a detective and an excellent drama whether viewed as a companion to the earlier series or not. Both actors made the unsociable, educated, hard-drinking, melancholic, cryptic crossword and opera fan, into the beloved character he is today.
1. Sherlock Holmes – Various
He’s called The Great Detective for a reason. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian literary creation has yet to be bettered. A singular genius whose deductive powers are unmatched, Holmes is the ultimate British detective, on TV or otherwise. His cases are famous, his deductions are legendary, and he works in any era, as the many and continuing film, TV and stage incarnations of Sherlock Holmes prove. And the best actor ever to play him? It’s clearly Jeremy Brett. People will tell you it’s Basil Rathbone or Benedict Cumberbatch, but don’t hold it against them. They can’t help being wrong.
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