Queens of Mystery is a British comedy-drama-murder-mystery original series by Acorn TV.
Young Mathilda Stone "lost" her mother in mysterious circumstances at the tender age of three years, three days, three hours, and three minutes. Fortunately, her wildly eccentric aunts, Beth, Cat, and Jane, stepped in to raise her. As all three are successful crime writers (one even owning a mystery themed book store) it was "no surprise" Mathilda joined the police at eighteen. The series begins with Mathilda moving back to her hometown of Wildemarsh as a newly minted detective seeking to prove herself. Quirkiness, largely in the form of her dangerously (to others) affectionate and meddlesome aunts, ensues.
Queens of Mystery contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Bi: While her official bio says Cat defines herself as a lesbian, she's "been known to have brief affairs with men in the past", one of which produced her estranged daughter, Annie.
- Animated Credits Opening: The stylish opening credits are animated to simulate "pop-up" books to allude to the three aunts being mystery writers and the quirkiness of the show.
- Ass Pull: In-universe, the ending of Oscar Prescott's book was shockingly going to reveal the killer to be his long-time detective character Charlie Palmer. Palmer would explain he was dying of cancer and the victim just happened to be responsible for the death of Charlie's sister. So he murdered the guy, then killed himself. Oscar was tired of the character and wanted a wild exit which only led to Charlie's biggest fan to murder him.
- Asshole Victim: As is common with this type of show many of the murder victims are less than pleasant people and includes bullies, blackmailers, sexual predators and accomplices.
- Averted with the very first victim who looks like he's going to be a typical arrogant, bullying Small Name, Big Ego author but is revealed to be at worst a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who is having to deal with a bunch of stuff that would leave anyone short tempered
- Betty and Veronica: Matilda, blonde, capable and level headed is the "Betty" to Daniel, with Natasha as the rich, smart but bitchy brunette "Veronica." Also subverted with Daniel and George for Matilda as while Daniel is rich and dark haired he's not that much different in disposition to George.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The aunts, Beth, Cat, and Jane, respectively. The missing sister, Mathilda's mother, was also a blonde, as is Mathilda herself.
- Brainy Brunette: Subverted. The brunette's no slacker, but red-headed Aunt Jane is the one doing chemistry experiments to determine what pill was thrown in the bin.
- British Rockstar: Cat was a young rock star in an 80's New Wave band. In flashbacks we see she had experienced some of the alcohol and sex for this trope. 40 years later she's still got the clothing, hair and attitude of a cool Brit rocker
- Caustic Critic: In the third episode the theatre critic writing about a play written by Aunt Jane writes a negative review. The aunts note he writes nothing positive about any of their books. However, turns out to be a subversion in the case of the play in question — he was planning to write a positive review, but was bribed not to.
- Contrived Coincidence: The aunts often overhear vital information to Matilda's case, giving them a reason to meddle. This is partly justified by their overall meddling natures and keen skills of observation.
- Cool Aunt: While all of Mathilda's aunts are intelligent and successful, her Aunt Cat spent time as a rock star and a Hollywood Stuntwoman before penning a successful series of mystery graphic novels. She sent young Mathilda off to school with a copy of The Art of War, possibly taught her to fight, and regularly rides a motorcycle wearing zebra spandex pants with leopard print scarves.
- Cozy Mystery: at its heart, though Mathilda is a real detective. Despite her and Inspector Thorne's best efforts, her aunts are always in the thick of it, picking locks and listening at doors. They know absolutely everybody, going so far as to get someone's mother on the phone for leverage.
- Creepy Crows: They abound, stuffed, live, and even faux paper in the opening credits. Even their feathers get special treatment.
- Death by Looking Up: Actor Sir Lawrence is hamming it up on the stage when he looks up and we see a sandbag, cut by the killer, falling towards him. Even worse, it's revealed the sandbag wasn't even meant for him — it was meant for the co-star he was literally upstaging, so his death was truly avoidable.
- Disappeared Dad: Matilda knows nothing about her father, and decides early in her life not to dig too much into him, since her aunts are enough. She starts to rethink this after the "Death by Vinyl" case, which also involved this trope — the long-deceased band member Nikki Holler also had an absent father, revealed to be Sir Ray, who felt guilty for missing out on her life and set up the whole band reunion and murders to make them pay for their role in his daughter's death.
- Disowned Parent: Cat has a daughter named Annie whom she raised as a single mom, but the two are no longer on speaking terms due to an unspoken falling out.
- Emotionally Tongue-Tied: Inspector Derek Thorne, in a Running Gag, gets one moment per case where the narrator highlights a deeply emotional thing he wants to say, and the standoffish thing he actually says. He especially gets this way around Jane Stone, whom he's had a crush on for years.
- Establishing Character Moment: The three aunts' personalities are established when packing Matilda off to school:
- The Smart Guy Jane gives Matilda a giant English dictionary and tells her to "Study hard".
- Cool Aunt Cat tells her if anyone gives her trouble to "land the first punch", giving her a copy of The Art of War (Sun Tzu).
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Beth gives Matilda a container of her favorite tuna pasta bake.
- Everyone Has Standards: Oscar Prescott is absolutely furious with his on/off lover Isabella Wolfe after he discovers that she plagiarized her latest novel from a fanfic writer and threatened the girl with literary oblivion if she said anything. Unfortunately for Isabella the actual author sent Oscar a copy of the story before she committed suicide and he's so angry that he not only finishes with Isabella he makes it clear that if she doesn't reveal the truth by the end of the book festival he will.
- Fiery Redhead: Averted. Red headed Aunt Jane is a gentle bookstore owner. Who can pick a mean lock, but seems much less likely to throw a punch or jump out of a moving car than Aunt Cat.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Aunt Beth is the gentlest and most nurturing of the sisters, having been a midwife for 25 years, and Matilda herself is generally a compassionate person.
- Hero's Classic Car: Mathilda's mother's 1960's Morris Minor Traveller, which Mathilda's aunts restored as a gift to her.
- Informed Ability: In "Smoke & Mirrors", Amy Austen and Ian Winterfield, after giving not-so-stellar performances during rehearsals throughout the story, are both commended as future stars when the final reviews come out, for performances viewers never got to see. Somewhat justified, since the duo are commended most for their onstage chemistry — Amy was trying to act alongside an older actor who was very critical of her throughout most of her scenes, while Ian was still trying to learn his lines last minute throughout his scenes.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The two parts of each story are called "First Chapter" and "Final Chapter".
- Lights Off, Somebody Dies: In the first episode, the victim is killed with the award he just one during a blackout.
- Lemony Narrator: The delightful Juliet Stevenson who prefers not to dwell on that unfortunate encounter with the Samoan arm wrestling champion.
- Loony Fan: The killer in "Murder in the Dark" was this. At first, Mathilda thought it was with the author Oscar Prescott but realized the woman was actually in love with Oscar's creation, Charlie Palmer. When she snuck a look at a manuscript that showed Oscar was going to reveal Charlie was a murderer and then kill him off, Emily killed him to "save the man I loved." After she's arrested, she imagines Charlie sitting by her as she's led to jail.
- Never One Murder: Each mystery has two episodes and two murders with the second always occuring in the last few minutes of part one to close out the episode.
- Oblivious to Love: Aunt Jane, though Inspector Thorne doesn't give her much to work with. To a lesser extent Mathilda herself, not noticing Terry fawning all over her when she introduces herself.
- Middle Child Syndrome: Indicated by Word of St. Paul. As described by Cat's actress Julie Graham in an article for Hidden Remote
:She’s the middle sister, and middle children are often weird. She’s the black sheep of the family, a rebel, irresponsible. She does her own thing and knows her own mind. She went off and did the sex, drugs, and rock and roll when she was young. - Missing Mom: The opening of the series explains that Mathilda 'lost' her mother. It takes awhile to realize this isn't necessarily a euphemism.
- The Mourning After: Beth lost her husband four years prior to the series and hasn't dated since. At the end of Season 1, Cat encourages Beth to get back out there.
- Mysterious Past: Mathilda's mother obviously had one. And her aunts are doing everything they can to keep it that way.
- Mystery Writer Detective: All three aunts fancy themselves as this, and are indeed offer key information to solving Matilda's cases.
- Poor Communication Kills:
- In "Murder in the Dark", Beth refusing to tell Matilda why she was confronting Oscar or arrived in the library on the night of Tobias's murder (since it's connected to a secret behind Matilda's mother's past), Beth is nearly sentenced for double homicides she did not commit.
- At the end of Season 1, the aunts are revealed to have set Matilda up on a date with her crush Daniel, who has just gone on a break with his fiancé. Between the aunts, who have a history of setting her up with male acquaintances she doesn't care for, keeping Daniel a surprise, and Daniel not telling her about the breakup, Matilda has no reason to suspect she's been set up on a date with someone she actually likes, so she bails... leaving Daniel to believe he's been stood up by her. Had either the aunts or Daniel said something more concrete to Matilda, it might have turned out better for the two of them.
- Quirky Town: Wildemarsh has a windmill in the center of town, holds an annual crime writers festival at a small local castle, and features quirky literary-themed shops such as Jane's mystery bookshop, Murder Ink, a pub called The Embittered Hack, and a hotel/pub called The Farewell to Arms Arms.
- Rule of Three: Matilda lost her mother when she was "three years, three days, three hours, and three minutes" old, and goes on to be raised by her mother's three sisters.
- Sibling Rivalry: Averted in the first episode. While all three aunts are crime writers and Beth's books are indicated to be the most popular, since she is up for an award, the narrator indicates that Jane and Cat's works have enough of their own acclaim and niche appeal to hold their own.
- Stalker Shrine: A suspect of the third murder has a shrine to a revered actor, it gives a clue to Matilda that the two used to be married.
- Sticky Fingers: In a Season Two mystery a rare manuscript goes missing and the team initially thinks it's linked to the murder. Turns out the thief has a book-specific kleptomania.
- Team Mom: Beth, while the youngest sister, was also an experienced midwife for many years (able to tell someone is pregnant at a glance), is the best cook in the family, and is the most nurturing towards Matilda.
