The UK’s most popular detective shows

Britain has always loved detectives. From the days of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dame Agatha Christie to the present day, brits have enjoyed the intrigue of the genre.

Since 1955, almost 25% of British television has been crime dramas, police procedurals or detective dramas. Casino and iGaming experts at online.casino have analysed search volume for ninety series dating from 1962 – 2023 and have compiled a list of the top 20.

Line of Duty tops the list with 502,000 searches per month. Airing on the BBC and lasting for six seasons, Line of Duty follows Detective Seargent Steve Arnott, a former authorized firearms officer after he is transferred to AC-12, a unit tasked with uncovering police corruption.

Unforgotten comes in second with a search volume of 151,000 per month. Starring Nicola Walker as DCI Cassie Stuart and Sanjeev Bhaskar as DI Sunil Khan, Unforgotten focuses on past crimes and buried secrets. Series five airs on ITV in February 2023

Death in Paradise holds third place with 133,000 searches. Set in the Carribean, the show is unique for having four different actors play the lead detective throughout its eleven series. The most recent and longest serving actor is Ralf Little as DI Neville Parker and the series is currently airing on the BBC.

The longest running show in the top 20, Silent Witness is in fourth place with 110,000 monthly searches. Currently airing on the BBC, series 26 follows Dr Nikki Alexander (Emilia Fox) and her team of forensic pathologists.

Endeavour lands in fifth place with 77,000 searches per month. Endeavour follows Inspector Morse through his early career as a police constable. Series nine will air on ITV in February 2023.

Rounding out the top ten are Vera in sixth place, Midsomer Murders in seventh, The Fall in eighth, The Missing in ninth and Shetland in tenth.

Grantchester, whose final series begins airing this year, just misses out and comes in eleventh place.

Happy Valley, currently airing its final series on the BBC, comes in fourteenth place despite high fan ratings on IMDB.

A spokesperson for online.casino had this to say about the findings:
“Line of Duty’s final episode was watched by 12.8 million viewers, the most watched episode of any drama since 2002. Two years later, it’s clear that people are still talking about the series, and this is what any crime drama aims towards.

Seeing long runners like Midsomer Murders alongside stand-alone series like Zen and River shows that the public’s appetite for drama is still going strong and it’s interesting that of all the top 20 shows, nine of them have finished in the last seven years.

It’s amazing to see shows that have been running for over twenty years can still get people talking and we will have to wait and see if Line of Duty can be toppled.”