A wet weekend was the perfect time to renew my acquaintance with northern England's housewife super-sleuth Hetty Wainthropp. And I have to say that the first episodes of this quirky series were every bit as enjoyable as I remembered.
The series begins with Hetty's 60th birthday and her realisation that there's so much more to life than waiting around for the pension and making dinner for her husband Robert. The job she takes on in the local post office is short-lived as she becomes suspicious of a young couple collecting a neighbour's pension. Suspecting fraud, she solves the case, with the help of a young tearaway she later takes on as her assistant in her new detective agency.While the unlikely duo has its share of clients who want to find their lost pets, there's nothing warm and fuzzy about other subjects in this series. Whether it's witchcraft, Robert's uncle's suicide or the search for a schizophrenic son kicked out of home by his father and desperately worried about by his mother, Hetty and her young assistant deal with it with gentle humour, tact and great application of the little grey cells (not for nothing is Hetty a fan of Agatha Christie's great detective Hercule Poirot.)
As portrayed by Patricia Routledge, Hetty is a wonderful character and thankfully nothing at all like Routledge's other great lady, the snobby Hyacinth Bouquet. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Hetty before the next wet weekend.Rating: I give this 4/5
GREAT!!Reviewed by Jan @ Ballarat branch
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