Mandy Patinkin has a new series on the way, a lighthearted whodunnit on Hulu that is already being compared in tone and spirit to the Hulu hit “Only Murders in the Building.” It’s part of the wave of light mysteries in recent years that has also included “Poker Face” and the “Knives Out” movies. The streamer has just announced that the series, called “Death and Other Details,” will premiere on Jan. 16.
The season will revolve around yet another “And Then There Were None”-style story line involving a murder on an opulent Mediterranean ocean liner. The prime suspect is a young woman played by Violett Beane (“God Friended Me”), a petty thief who turns for help to Patinkin’s genius detective, Rufus Cotesworth, even though she despises him.
Advertisement
In describing Patinkin’s character to Entertainment Weekly, the co-creators of the show, Mike Weiss and Heidi Cole McAdams, make some heady comparisons: “Rufus can take a single thread found at a crime scene and tell you where it was woven, and when, and who it belonged to. He is constantly amazed by his own brilliance. In that way, he is not unlike Poirot, Holmes, or other masterful detectives who came before him. However, the rules have changed. When we meet Rufus, he’s struggling to survive in a post-fact world.”
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.