Detective Inspector Neville Parker has long left Saint-Marie, so the infinite number of potential murderers hiding on the island might have thought now was the time to strike. Whatever makes the island the home to approximately eight impossible crimes a year (and sometimes one at Christmas) is still there, so it’s a good job that DI Mervin Wilson arrived to meet his birth mother only to end up remaining on the island. Whatever it is that encourages impossible mysteries also seems to attract the one active sleuth in the Met who is capable of solving them.

So, as I’ve been a bit lax in my Death In Paradise reviews, I thought I’d use this year’s Christmas special to catch up on last Christmas, series fourteen and this Christmas. Here we go…

First of all, let’s take a look at the cast. Every time someone leaves, there is a concern that the replacement won’t match up. To be honest, I think that happened once in the show’s long run with one of the supporting characters, naming no names, but there were big shoes to fill here. Ralf Little, is in my opinion, hands down the best of the four lead sleuths, but Don Gilet replaces him admirably. He has different quirks – doesn’t really want to be there, is quite blunt/rude at times (delete as applicable) – but his development over the series is fun to watch, especially his relationship with his team.

Shontal Jackson continues to shine as DS Thomas – she should win awards just for her facial reactions to Mervin – and Ginny Holder as Officer Curtis steals almost every scene as she refuses to take any crap from her serios officer. There’s a lovely bit in the recent Christmas episode where Mervin seems to be actively scared of her!

There’s a reasonably good fake-out with Dwayne’s replacement too, but the over-eager Sebastian (Shaquille Ali-Yebuah) is a marvellous addition – going back to this Christmas’ episode and his contribution isn’t something you’d expect any previous character doing.

Right, episode by episode summary – although my memory might be a bit fuzzy.

2024 Christmas

Three Santas are shot at the same time in different places. A good debut for Mervin but the solution – and indeed the set up – requires a lot of coincidences to work.

Episode 1

A reasonable fake-out in the pre-credits sequence, but not the most interesting mystery, basically being everyone having alibis.

Episode 2

Much more like it, a reality TV contestant is stabbed. Only problem is, they were halfway down a zipline when it happened…

Episode 3

The owner of a skincare company dies from an allergic reaction to one of her products. Another decent episode, even if the solution does contain a few similarities to the previous episode.

Episode 4

Everyone at a distillery drinks from the same bottle, only one of them is poisoned. Not a bad version of that old chestnut, although the method won’t surprise anyone.

Episode 5

After being substituted, a star player from a women’s football team is found shot dead. I think I need to use a code for this basic murder method as it’s being used a lot – it’ll crop up again this year too. Havin gsaid that, I did miss it…

Episode 6

An online predator is shot in his villa but everyone involved had an iron clad alibi. Somehow this comes across as an impossible crime, unlike Episode One – probably due to having a more interesting solution. Not sure there was enough time though…

Episode 7

Mervin finally has a suspect in his mother’s death, only there seems to be no way to prove his guilt. A different style of episode where we know the guilty party but he seems untouchable. Nicely done.

Episode 8

Mervin’s flight to leave the island for good is interrupted when he is arrested after a dead body is found locked inside his shack. I’ll be honest, I can’t recall a lot about the plot of this one, but it works pretty well.

Christmas 2025

Mervin’s still around – I won’t spoil why – but ex-Commissioner Patterson is in the UK. A work getaway is interrupted when the guests wake up from a drunken night to find an unknown dead body, shot, in the pool. And Patterson finds the gun – locked in a drawer in an office in Swindon…

Blimey, the solution to this is daft. So many things to question – there was a much easier way to streamline the solution. I said the timings in Episode 6 were questionable, but this one? Why would anyone want to create the situation of the gun being halfway around the world? What does that add apart from drawing suspicion? And the information received from the passport office was very selective…

Having said that, the cast still carried it (although Pearl Mackie was wasted), there was some nice Christmassy stuff and some excellent news for the next series at the end.

As ever, looking forward to the next series – and I will review it sooner this time – but there is one question that still needs answering, fourteen years on…

At what point in the investigation do they get the suspect pictures? They seem to be on the board in the office as soon as things start, but surely this means that the photos are taken (against a white background usually) as soon as they met the team. Yet often they are prostrate with grief – “oh Inspector, my husband has just died, how can I go on, yes, I’ll stop crying for a bit, fix my make-up and then pose for a head shot.” That sort of thing. Every time it happens it bothers me…

Anyway, as I said, roll on Series 15. And give me a couple of days and I’ll get round to Series 2 of the just-as-good Return To Paradise…