PBS & Channel 5 Team Up for 'The Puzzle Lady' Starring Phyllis Logan

Channel 5 has announced the commission of a new cozy-crime series, The Puzzle Lady, based on the best-selling series of novels by the late Parnell Hall (1944-2020). Described as "Miss Marple on steroids" or "Jessica Fletcher meets Groucho Marx." Hall started publishing the series with A Clue for the Puzzle Lady in 1999; The Puzzle Lady Mysteries ran 20 installments, with the last book, Lights! Camera! Puzzles!, arriving in 2019. The series will now get a massive boost as it's turned into a six-episode mystery series starring Phyllis Logan (Downton Abbey) as the titular sleuth, set to air on PBS. 

Logan will play Cora Felton, who (in the novels) is a nationally syndicated crossword puzzle maker based in New England. (The series will relocate her to a small U.K. village, natch.) Her small town is proud of its famous puzzle-creator resident, enough to overlook her gin-and-cigarette habit, but when a body is found with a crossword in its pocket, and more begin arriving, her niece, Sherry Carter, and the local police chief, Dale Harper, turn to her for help. The books are singular in that they contain actual crossword puzzles for the reader to solve along with the characters (and in later installments, Soduku puzzles as well)*.

(NYT Games enthusiasts will note Will Shortz, the long-time editor of the paper's crosswords, is credited with helping Hall create many of the novels' puzzles.)

Hall sold the adaptation rights to The Puzzle Lady in September 2020, only a few months before his passing. Germany’s ZDF Enterprises teamed up with Canada's December Films and the U.K.’s Factual Fiction to secure the rights to all 20 novels. Since then, there have been a few false starts; The Puzzle Lady was initially listed as filming in September 2023 but wound up delayed until Channel 5 and PBS boarded the project a year later.

Here is the synopsis for A Clue for the Puzzle Lady, which will be told over the first season's six episodes.

When a strange murder takes place in the sleepy market town of Bakerbury, the local police are baffled by a crossword puzzle clue left on the body. Fortunately, the famous cruciverbalist Cora Felton, known as The Puzzle Lady, has just moved to town with her long-suffering niece, Sherry Carter. Behind the cosy façade of a demure older lady – an image that markets her best-selling crossword column and a popular brand of biscuits – is a chain-smoking, wisecracking, borderline alcoholic. Not only is the persona of eccentric old Cora a lie, she isn’t the puzzle expert, she’s actually a fraudulent frontwoman for Sherry, the real puzzle expert, whose brilliant crossword puzzles have become a national sensation. Despite her lack of expertise, Cora cannot help but turn enthusiastically to amateur sleuthing, much to the chagrin of Detective Chief Inspector Hooper who wishes he’d never involved her in the first place!

Hooper holds the most senior rank in a woefully understaffed local police station. He’s a perfectly competent DCI, but has had very little experience with serious crime, particularly murder – until now. He moans when Cora sticks her nose in his cases, but forgives her because she always saves the day in the end. Not only does Cora crack this murder case, she discovers a knack for solving murders, and as it turns out, Bakerbury isn’t as sleepy as it looks.

So far, the only cast members confirmed are Logan as Cora and Charlotte Hope (The Spanish Princess) as Sherry. More are expected in due course.

Writer Dominique Moloney (Shakespeare & Hathaway) is adapting the novels for television with director Tom Dalton (The Greatest Show Never Made) helming all installments. The series is Factual Fiction's first fictional drama. (The company's previous series were scripted factual series, like ITV's The Queen Unseen). The Puzzle Lady will be executive produced by Moloney, Dalton, plus Patrick Irwin & Emily Dalton for Factual Fiction; Paul Testar & Sebastian Cardwell for Channel 5; Todd Berger & Julie Di Cresce for December Films; Jennifer Chen for Channel Zero Studios; Daniel Mekinda for GroupM Motion Entertainment; and Yi Qiao & Robert Franke for ZDF Studios. Northern Ireland Screen provided additional funding. 

The Puzzle Lady does not yet have a release date, but with filming underway, it isn't expected to air until at least mid-2025.