"Whistable Pearl": A Cozy British Murder with Obvious Red Herrings and Cute Guys

 

The British mystery series Whistable Pearl appeared among my Amazon recommendations.  They have a reasonably good algorithm, so presumably there are gay characters.

Scene 1: Establishing shots of a seaside village.  A middle-aged woman, presumably Whistable Pearl, tries to call a guy named Vinnie, who fishes for crabs or oysters or something.  He doesn't answer, so she motors out to his boat -- ulp, he's floating in the water, tangled in the anchor line, drowned!

Scene 2: Hunky inspector Mike (Howard Charles, right) gets into a row with a farmer who won't back up his truck so he can get through, then goes to the police station to interrogate Pearl.  She's annoyed; she has explained this a dozen times before.  "Vinne provides crabs for my restaurant.  He didn't answer his phone, so I motored out to his boat and found him dead.  God, you are dense!"

"Why did you tow the boat to shore instead of calling the coast guard?"

"He was too heavy to pull on board.  The boat was drifting.  He has two small children."  Ok, so he's heterosexual, thus infinitely valuable.  If he were gay, would you have let him drift out to sea?

Scene 3:  Outside the police station, Pearl is met by her Mum, Dolly.  She offers to open the restaurant so Pearl can recover from the trauma, but Pearl insists that she can do it.  

As Inspector Mike stares suspiciously, Mum discusses the various times she was arrested during her activist days: protesting nuclear weapons, throwing eggs at Margaret Thatcher, bzz bzz at the Catholic Church (was she in ACT UP?).  

Scene 4: Back home, Pearl's hot teenage son, Charlie (Rohan Nedd),  is looking at college campuses.  "You saw him dead, then?  Must have been rough."  

Plot twist: Pearl is a private detective, who was hired to investigate Vinnie!  She didn't tell the police that, because. "They're idiots!"

Scene 5:  Inspector Mike is in his hotel room, unpacking.  Why is he sticking around for an accidental death> He gets a call: the forensics report is in.

Switch immediately to Pearl's restaurant, the Thistledown, right on the docks.  Pearl sees a young man, Max (Oliver Dench, whom Google Images says is one of these guys), yelling at her employee, Ruby, and wants to know what he is doing there.  "Um...er...um...he was just helping out."  He leaves; Pearl is concerned at the signs of abuse.  "Everything's fine...um...er...gotta go wait on those customers!"

Mum and Pearl cook and discuss her son Charlie going away to college.  "You have to face it -- he'll be moving out.  This is your opportunity to live a little.  Have sex. Do you even remember what a penis looks like?"  

Scene 6: After work (they must only be open for lunch), Pearl goes to a trailer court (do they call them council houses in Britain?) to talk to Vinnie's widow, Connie.  Plot dump: Vinnie quit his day job to become an oyster fisherman, and was not making a living at it.  They were deeply in debt.  He borrowed some money from a loan shark named Stroud.  And Stroud came to collect?  This must be a red herring.  

More plot dump: Stroud is the one who hired Pearl to investigate Vinnie.  And now he won't answer his phone.  Still a red herring.

Scene 7:  Back at the restaurant, Pearl waits on Ruby's abusive boyfriend Max and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Arzanoff (Georg Nikoloff).  Mum rushes over to take their order so she can push Pearl at the hunky Inspector Mike from Scene 2.  He states that he doesn't like small towns "because you have to talk to people." They'll be kissing by Episode 4.   By the way, forensic investigation reveals that Vinnie's death was an accident.  Then why are you still there?

Pearl tells him about Stroud, the loan shark who hired her and now won't answer his phone.  "Growl, growl, I think you did it."  

Scene 8:  Pearl calls Inspector Mike with a new clue: Vinnie was done for the day.  He was in the midst of sorting and cleaning his oysters, so he must have been anchored.  So how could he have gotten tangled in anything?  And why was the boat drifting?

She sees Abusive Boyfriend Max picking up Ruby, and is concerned.  

Scene 9: Night.  Pearl goes home.  The house is all dark, and the door is ajar.  Psych -- it's Tina, Vinnie's ex-wife..well, current wife, since he died before the divorce papers were signed.  Wait -- he's been with Connie for many years. They have two kids together.  Where does Tina fit in?

Tina reveals that she's is dating Stroud the Loan Shark, and convinced him to lend the money to Vinnie.  Now he's gone.  So everybody has a history with everybody in this small town.  I'm stuck in Peyton Place, and the only potential gay character is Charlie.  Inspector Mike hasn't mentioned any wife or girlfriend, but he's obviously Pearl's Love Interest.  

Pearl suggests contacting Inspector Mike, and shows her the door.

"And, by the way, Connie stands to gain a fortune from Vinnie's life insurance policy.  Bye!"  No, if they aren't married, the money will go to the ex-wife.

Scene 10: Pearl tracks down Stroud at a local inn, and sneaks into his room by pretending to be a food delivery service (or maybe her restaurant really does deliver).  He's hanging from his tie in the bathroom, dead.  

Inspector Mike and some cops arrive, suspicious about Pearl's involvement.  She blames Connie, the widow: "Maybe Stroud threatened her about the money.  Maybe he threatened her kids.  She's desperate, she's unbalanced.  She hires someone."

 Scene 11:  Night.  Inspector Mike lies awake in bed (no beefcake), thinking about a laughing woman.  They kiss; he plays with her hair.  Ugh...dead wife, the hoariest cliche in the book.  If they mentioned that in the plot synopsis, I never would have started this. As it is, I'm going to fast-forward to the conclusion.

Beefcake: Mike goes swimming (still no beefcake).

Heterosexism:  Pearl asks Mike "Are you married?", assuming that he is heterosexual.

Gay Characters:  None identified here.  This is based on a novel series, one of which has Pearl's gay neighbor as a murder suspect.

Whodunit:  I was right, Stroud was a red herring.  It wasn't the widow or the ex-wife, either.  Or Vinnie's ex-boss, who hated him for quitting his job, and was having an affair with the widow. Wait -- do you hate people for quitting?   Or Pearl, or anyone in her family.