The M-Net series ‘Recipes for Love and Murder’ leaves us asking how a woman with no detective experience can solve a complicated murder investigation?
Starring the award-winning Maria Doyle Kennedy (Outlander, Orphan Black, Kin) and Tony Kgoroge (Black Sails, Invictus, Long Walk to Freedom), the 10-episode series is humorous and heartwarming as it is chilling and shocking. It deftly flits between moods and genres and will make you chuckle as quickly as it will make you gasp. It’s the perfect show to take over the primetime slot that traditionally has belonged to the Sunday night movie.
The series is produced by M-Net, Both Worlds Pictures, AMC Networks’ Acorn TV and Global Screen. It is also directed by Christiaan Olwagen and Karen Jeynes (the show’s writer), and is based on the acclaimed Tannie Maria Mystery novels by Sally Andrew.
Filmed in Cape Town, the Karoo and Scotland, Recipes for Love and Murder is set in Eden, a fictional Karoo town where everything is either freshly baked or homemade. Where everyone knows each other, and where the biggest crime for the police to solve is finding out who keeps stealing a tractor to drive it around drunkenly.
The Gazette, Eden’s local newspaper, is struggling to make ends meet. So, in an attempt to please advertisers, its boss Hattie Wilson (played by Jennifer Steyn, Goodbye Bafana, Master Harold and the Boys) decides to start running an advice column. Recipe columnist Maria Purvis (Doyle Kennedy) does what anyone who wants to keep their job would do. She pivots and starts a new identity as Tannie Maria, your friendly newspaper advice aunty.
But the first letter that catches her attention is from a woman in an abusive marriage. Shortly after Tannie Maria’s advice to her is published, the woman, Martine Burger (Tinarie van Wyk Loots, Fynskrif, Hole in the Wall), is murdered in her home. This shakes the town, especially the women at the Gazette, resulting in Maria teaming up with her younger, feisty colleague Jessie September (played by exciting newcomer Kylie Fisher) to solve Martine’s murder.
The police now have an actual albeit gruesome crime to solve, led by the mysterious and icy top cop Khaya Meyer (Kgoroge), whose story unfolds as the season progresses.
The following cast members round off the stellar cast of Recipes for Love and Murder: Elton Landrew as Constable Piet; Arno Greeff as Warrant Officer Regardt Snyman; Lee Duru as Grace, a domestic worker whose story shakes up the town; award-winning comedian Alan Committee as Cornel van Wyk, Martine’s boss; Rolanda Marais as Candy, Martine’s sister; Bennie Fourie as Dirk Burger, the main murder suspect; and Daneel van der Walt as Anna Pretorius, Martine’s grieving best friend.
Will Maria and Jessie prove an asset or hindrance to the investigation? Can they catch Martine’s killer, or will the killer see them first? Was it really the husband who did it – or is the real culprit still hiding in the shadows? And why is Maria so secretive about her past in Scotland?
The murder investigation involves ex-boyfriends, greedy family members, land development, religious fanatics, chaotic funerals, and pomegranates.
Nothing is as it seems in Recipes for Love and Murder – even in Eden’s sleepy and sweet little town. Tune in every Sunday at 7 pm on M-Net, DStv Channel 101, starting March 20.
