'Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue' Sets Cast of Eight

Anthony Horowitz is a name that's become synonymous with the best of British TV mysteries. After writing 11 episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot, he created and wrote the first seasons of Midsomer Murders before wandering off to do the same for Foyle's War. Currently, his Alex Rider novels are a hit on Amazon's Prime Video, and his Susan Ryland meta contemplations on mysteries and our love of them are Masterpiece hits on PBS. His latest project, Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue, was snapped up by Amazon for the struggling MGM+ streaming service in Mach 2024, but with an American actor attached, it wasn't clear if this would be a British mystery. However, with the BBC now on board as filming begins in the Canary Islands and the rest of the cast set, viewers can rest assured that it is.

Nine Bodies is something of an international piece, considering the setting is, well, a Mexican morgue. With American Eric McCormick (Will & Grace) as the only actor confirmed when Amazon signed on, the limited series could have easily gone the Alex Rider direction into an American-based show. After all, this is a mystery about a plane that crashes in the jungles of Mexico, with a small passenger list, all of whom could roughly be from anywhere.

However, with the BBC boarding and the cast now revealed, it turns out the leading players (eight in all) are majority British, with only McCormick, British-American Lydia Wilson (The Swarm), and Icelandic-American Ólafur Darri Ólafsson (The Tourist) not hailing strictly from the U.K.

Here's the limited series' synopsis:

In the six-part series, a plane carrying a small group of passengers, crew and pilot, crashes in the Mexican jungle. All the bodies are recovered and placed in a morgue…but it turns out that only one of them died in the crash. The other passengers were murdered afterwards, each one in a unique way. But by whom? And why? As the story unfolds in flashback, we meet the survivors as they fight against the heat, a shortage of supplies, the many dangers of the jungle…and each other. The setting becomes increasingly tense and claustrophobic as, one by one, they are dispatched with a series of shocks that bring us ever closer to the truth and – at the very end – a jaw-dropping reveal.

If that sounds familiar, yes, this is the Agatha Christie And Then There Were None formula, but with a modern 21st-century spin.

McCormack, Wilson, and Ólafsson are joined in the ensemble cast by David Ajala (Star Trek: Discovery), Peter Gadiot (Yellowjackets), Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls), Adam Long (Happy Valley), and Jan Le (D.I. Ray).

Horowitz created and wrote all six episodes of Nine Bodies. He also executive produces the series with Eleventh Hour Films, a Sony Pictures Television-backed company.

Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue does not yet have a release date but is expected out in 2025.