A B Wynter, the Chief Usher of the White House, is lying dead in the game room. Having taken poison and cut his wrists, with a suicide note in his pocket, it’s a clear case of suicide. Well, that would be the easy answer, especially as there is a formal White House dinner honouring the Australian Prime Minister at the time. The President’s Chief Advisor is very keen on the suicide theory. But Cordelia Cupp, the greatest detective in the world, thinks differently.

There is a slight problem though. The administration want it ruled as a suicide. Otherwise the house has 132 rooms to search and 157 suspects that need to be kept on site, including representatives from a foreign government. That’s not the problem – the problem the administration has is, as I said, named Cordelia Cupp…

The latest Netflix murder mystery, an eight-part series starring Uzo Aduba as Cordelia Cupp and a cast of thousands (well, a bit less than that) as the White House staff and guests. And Kylie Minogue as herself.

Weirdly, the show is based on a non-fiction book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House by Kate Anderson Bower. No, it’s not a story of an actual murder in the White House, something inspired the creators to take this book and add a murder mystery plot on top of it. And a murder mystery plot with style, panache, humour and even a cluefinder!

This was such a treat. To be fair, I thought episodes 2 and 3 dragged a little, but we were being shown quite a lot of important information as the story settles into place, and the killer is a bit guessable. But those are the only negatives – and there are so many positives.

The scriptwriters clearly know their murder mysteries – the titles of the episodes are all classic mystery titles from literature and TV, and they aren’t all that well known – The Mystery Of The Yellow Room, for example. I mentioned the clue-finder because every revelation that Cordelia explains, we see the little clip from earlier in the show that we completely missed as being important. Everything! And the solution is both delightfully complex and still perfectly followable.

Basically, the style is very influenced by Knives Out! which isn’t a bad thing in my book. The cast is perfect – it’s a shame that we didn’t get the original A B Wynter, namely Andre Braugher, who passed away during filming, but Giancarlo Esposito does a great job as the complex victim (who’s name was, I presume, changed in tribute to Braugher).

I could go on, but there are two other highlights that I wanted to mention. The first is the rather subtle love story that comes to the fore in episode seven, and the second is an exchange that should be immortalised in crime fiction communities forever.

When the White House advisor Harry Hollinger (Ken Marino) speculates that it’s a Murder On The Orient Express solution, and asks Chief of Police Dokes (Isiah Whitlock Jr) which film version he preferred, the response – “Neither. I read the book” while waving what looked to me like a first edition sans-DJ – was absolutely priceless.

All in all, a hugely enjoyable show – do press on if you find the first couple of episodes being, plot-wise at least, mostly set-up. Uzo Aduba is absolutely fantastic as Cordelia and let’s hope we see more of her in the future.