Welcome to Dolphin Cove, a beautiful Australian coastal town. DI Mackenzie Clark has come home to sort out her mother’s house, a good excuse to leave her job in London’s Met as she is under investagtion for evidence tampering. Unfortunately Mackenzie isn’t the most popular person in town due to the reason that she left… but when a local estate agent is found floating in the ocean with a knife in when the security cameras show that he never left his house two miles away, it seems that her skills as a detective are needed…

With Dolphin Cove the only police force willing to employ her with her current status, Mackenzie finds herself trying to mend fences while trying to solve this and five more puzzling murders…

So, this is the third series in the apparent “Paraverse” – Death In Paradise, Beyond Paradise and now Return To Paradise. There is more of a link than just solving crimes in the sunshine as Mackenzie’s boss in London is Jack Mooney aka Ardal O’Hanlan aka the Death In Paradise lead you’re most likely to forget about. And for those of you worrying, this is far closer to Death In Paradise than Beyond Paradise…

I’ll be honest, going into this I just presumed that it would be rehashing DIP plots with a different cast, but that’s not the case at all (as confirmed by Producer Robert Thorogood) as all six cases were new plots.

And it’s rather wonderful. If you like Death In Paradise, you’ll like this, simple as that.

Anna Samson is just mesmerising as Mackenzie. Her various quirks are never really defined – I suppose her slight struggle to connect to people mirrors Ben Miller’s Richard Poole most closely, but he just seemed to be rude, whereas she clearly is aware of her shortcomings and makes an active effort to try and connect with people. And she’s got the maddest staring eyes!

It’s got a slightly bigger supporting cast than DIP, all of whom do a really good job. The ongoing story regarding Mackenzie and Glenn, the forensic pathologist who she left at the altar does a good job of adding an ongoing emotional story – anyone who doesn’t smile at the chocolate milk in episode 6 needs a heart implant – and the fact that the “obstacle” is so nice does make me wonder where things are heading in the inevitable series 2.

The mysteries are all pretty good. There are a couple of obvious bits – the bit in the beauty salon for example was shot a little clumsily – but some ideas that I thought I had completely sussed – the “Three Act Tragedy”-esque poisoning had a lot more depth to the plot mechanics than I expected. Still got the murderer before the opening credits though, although that wasn’t true for most of the episodes.

All in all, I really loved this show – it’s far more than just a place-holder until Death In Paradise returns. The cast, the humour, the stories, the sunshine – while we’ll be back in Saint-Marie very soon, let’s hope we can revisit Dolphin Cove very soon.