Death and Other Details: Mandy Patinkin as 'The World's Greatest Detective' is Light, Twisty Fun

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B

Mandy Patinkin is one of those high-quality actors I’ll follow anywhere. And this week that anywhere is a 10 part-original murder mystery series on Disney+ called Death and Other Details.

The American series has a distinct Agatha Christie vibe, with a large and diverse cast playing characters stuck in a single location while a murder investigation proceeds, each with a secret or two that is revealed as the series progresses.  

And of course, we have secrets galore, family resentments, sexual entanglements, questions of personal identity, integrity and past traumas. It’s light fair, but juicy stuff, with enough twists and surprises to keep us guessing.

Mandy Patinkin and Violett Beane are out to solve a murder at sea in Death and Other Details

Patinkin is Rufus Cotesworth, a British gumshoe who at one point was dubbed the World’s Greatest Detective. He is on a by-invitation luxury Mediterranean cruise that has been chartered for business purposes.

The business: Two families are about to make a deal to become partners. The American Collier family has a long-term operation, Collier Mills, and they’re about to acquire a minority partner in the very wealthy Chun Family of Singapore. There are, additionally, some other corporate changes. The patriarch Lawrence (David Marshall Grant) is retiring and is to be replaced by his daughter Anna (Lauren Patten). The secret is that the Collier family's business will go under unless it gets bail-out money from the Chun Family of Singapore.  Everyone is edgy. 

But this is delayed when an invited guest, Keith Trubitsky (Michael Gladis), another potential Collier- Mills company investor is found dead in his room.  

We've briefly seen Keith in action, being utterly rude to Winnie (Annie Q. Riegel), a young waitress on the ship. He’s then also rude to Imogene, (Violett Beane), who follows and confronts him about his behaviour.  Later that night, to punish him, she sneaks into his room, breaks a watch he was boasting about and steals a chunk of his cash. 

But, uh-oh. She notices on her way out that she’s been caught on security camera.

The next day he is found dead.  And Rufus is on the case, but he’s not going to take this on alone.

Now I’ve started by talking about Patinkin, a.k.a. Rufus. But the series’ protagonist is Imogene. She’s young, beautiful and she knows it. She has moxie and attitude. But, of course, she also has an emotional wound.  

Her mother was killed in a car explosion when she was 11, which she witnessed.  At the time her mother was working for the Colliers, who took her in and raised her, although she’s not quite a family member.  

But, here is where the twists begin: The Colliers hired the great Rufus Cotesworth to investigate. He promised young Imogene (Sophia Reid-Gantzert) that he would not rest until he found the murderer, but never delivered on that. The murder is still unsolved.

Now back on the ship, the great detective introduces himself to the adult Imogene, who believes him a fraud and a liar, and is deeply suspicious of him.  However, Imogene has keen detective instincts, a cool intellect and, since she was in the dead man’s room that evening, knows she’s a prime suspect.  More’s the reason to want to identify the murderer.  So, she joins Rufus in investigating. 

And given the people on the cruise, the members of the Collier family, the members of the Chun family, other random and assorted guests, crew, security  and the ship’s owner Sunil (Rahul Kohli)  the potential perpetrators are legion.   

The series takes us back and forth in time, giving us backstories on characters, and how they intersect with others on the cruise. It gives us a sense of their relationships, how Cotesworth came to be called The World’s Greatest Detective, and how all stories, all points of villainy, seem to lead to a mysterious figure named Victor Sams, who may or may not exist.  

The series was created by Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss. And along with their writing staff, they’ve done a nice job of creating a cat’s cradle of complexity and connections between the characters that - incredibly given how many passengers are on this cruise - may at times feel maddening depending on your point of view. But it rarely feels forced.  

The acting is good.  It will no doubt be a breakout role for Violett Beane, but there are a lot of terrific and attractive actors in the cast.  And Patinkin is, as always, interesting to watch. And considering he’s the “name” actor, he’s also a generous one, fitting into the ensemble.  He does a reasonable British accent. Although it wanders a bit at times, it’s not distracting.  

As my colleague, Liam Lacey, noted in his review of Criminal Record a British crime show that's now streaming on Apple TV+, there’s a distinct difference in tone between detective mysteries from the UK and those from the U.S. There’s a level of gravitas that makes the U.K. shows riveting, even haunting, that’s often missing in American miniseries of the same ilk. 

This is true of Death and Other Details, which has mystery and jeopardy, but none of the grit or depth that reveals deeper things about society. It has more of a glossy, soap-opera feel to it.  Characters are mostly beautiful, fashionable, sexy with fabulous wardrobes. Amid increasing tension, everyone takes time to accessorize, that kind of thing.    

Eh bien. This may be light, but still twisty fun.  

Note that the first two episodes drop on January 16th, with one a week after that. 

Death and other Details, starring Mandy Patinkin, Violett Beane. First two episodes debut January 16 on Disney+.