My obsession with TV mysteries started at the tender age of twelve, when late-night PBS watching led to my first episode of Poirot on Masterpiece Mystery! Played by David Suchet, Hercule Poirot is a fussy Belgian private detective who solves murder mysteries with his daffy and extremely British colleague, Captain Hastings. The mismatched pair roam England’s golf links, sea side resorts, gritty cities, and innumerable train aisles in pursuit of varied criminals. Even grisly murders are shown in a gentle, sanitary light, and each 90-minute episode builds to a classic confrontation and proper arrest. Every mystery is solved by Poirot’s “little grey cells”—his trademark euphemism for clear, deductive thinking.

One Sunday, however, I settled in for a pleasant dose of Poirot only to find the shocking Prime Suspect. Unlike the fussy Poirot, Prime Suspect’s DCI Jane Tennison (played by Helen Mirren) smoked, glared and barked her way through murder mysteries. She battled sullen male colleagues as much as the elusive murder suspects themselves.Prime Suspect initiated me into a world where an angry, clever female detective ferreted out twisted killers and threw them behind bars—no matter the personal cost. Over the course of seven seasons, Tennison climbed to the rank of Detective Superintendent, and the job’s heavy toll on her personal life was as much the show’s focus as the mysteries she solved.

I was hooked, and ever since then I’ve been on the hunt for fantastic female detectives. Below are a few of the best I’ve found that are currently in their prime: spooky mysteries from France, goofy adventures from the US, gritty procedurals from the UK, and an eclectic mix from Australia.

9. iZombie

Liv Moore is a driven young medical student, but one night she puts her books aside and follows a coworker’s invitation to a sketchy boat party. While she’s sipping her drink and trying to look cool, all hell breaks loose: a vicious fight breaks out, the boat catches fire, and some groaning, shambling jerk scratches her before she can get away. The next thing she knows, she’s waking up in a body bag, her hair is white, her skin is pale, and (of course) she has a craving for brains.

iZombie, a new addition to the CW network, is loosely based on a 2010 Vertigo comic book of the same name. The series centers around the shattered life of Liv, a newly created zombie, as she trades in her doctor dreams and fiancé for a job at the local morgue. There, she employs her medical knowledge and discreetly chows on guilt-free corpse brains. Her boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, figures out that she’s a zombie and reacts as any good nerd would: with pro-zombie delight and an parade of blood tests to figure out how it works. When Liv discovers she inherits the memories and talents of her deceased buffet, she and Ravi realize she what it takes to solve murders. She poses as a crime solving psychic, and teams up with Detective Clive Babineaux to solve mysteries.

Each episode revolves around a murder, and Liv’s ongoing struggles to adjust to life as a zombie. Her sense of humor and avid curiosity save her from despair, and help her find a way forward. iZombie’s theme, a depressed young woman trying to find her way in the world, is clearly meant for teenage consumption but this former teenager enjoyed it too.

8. Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

The Honorable Phyrne Fisher inhabits the same 1920’s era as Poirot, but she’s worlds apart from the Belgian detective—half a world apart to be exact. Hailing from Australia, Miss Fisher is a flapper living in Melbourne who fills her days with toys: men, guns, and cocktail drinks. She’s a single woman with no use for marriage and a major taste for solving mysteries.

Essie Davis, who plays Fisher, neatly sums the character up: “Phryne isn’t Miss Marple and she isn’t Murder, She Wrote. She’s a cross between Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie style, James Bond and Wonder Woman.” Davis’s description isn’t far from the truth. Phryne (pronounced Fry-knee) uses all the tools at her disposal to catch scheming murderers. Her gold-plated gun and considerable charm work miracles and when those fail, her strong will and quick intelligence save the day.

Two seasons of the show are available on Netflix, and Miss Fisher is adapted from a series of mysteries written by Kerry Greenwood. So if you can’t wait for the 3^rd season, there’s always the books.

7. Top of the Lake

When Detective Robin Griffin returns to her New Zealand hometown to nurse her sick mother, she thinks she’s putting her job as a Sydney police officer on hold. But shortly after her arrival, she’s called to advise on the case of Tui Mitcham, a local 12-year old discovered pregnant after she tries to drown herself in the lake. Griffin opens an investigation into Tui’s life and after a day into the investigation, Tui disappears.

Film director Jane Campion, known for her movies Bright Star and The Piano, told the Telegraph that her inspiration for filming a TV show was simple. It began back in 2004, when she was watching Deadwood for the first time with her daughter and exclaimed, “Freaking hell, what is that? This is the most exciting thing I’ve seen anywhere. There’s a revolution going on.” Top of the Lake was born from her excitement. She added, “Television is the new frontier. Film is conservative. I’m sick of it.”

Set in the stunning wilderness of the New Zealand mountains, the show has a definite Twin Peaks appeal. Like its predecessor, it investigates the wickedness of a local family and the ways a community shields and cultivates those transgressions. Griffin (played by Madmen’s Elisabeth Moss) must sort through an appalling amount of deviance hidden in the community before she get to the bottom of the case and bring healing to her hometown.

Top of the Lake was co-produced for BBC Two, BBC UKTV, and the Sundance Channel. It is currently available on Netflix.

6. The Killing

Police detective Sarah Linden and her partner Stephen Holder eat in the claustrophobic humidity of Linden’s car. Rain streams down the windows as they quietly discuss a missing teenager, Rosie Larsen, who vanished days earlier without a trace. This scene captures the essence of AMC’s The Killing. Each episode plays out under Seattle’s rainy skies. Discussions flicker into brief intense fights then descend back into softly spoken words.

The Killing retains much the European tone that characterized the Danish television series it was based on: Forbrydelsen. literally “The Crime.” Like the Danish version, the American remake tracks the psychological reaction of a community and family to Rosie Larsen’s murder, focusing on Linden’s and Holder’s attempt to solve the crime. Each episode ends with a cliffhanger but it’s the actors’ performances that make it so enthralling. Mirielle Enos plays Linden, a tiny redhead on her last day of work. She’s about to tie the knot and leave detective work behind, but the call about Rosie’s disappearance comes in at the last minute and she refuses to leave her job until the teenager is found.

Linden’s partner Holder is played by Swedish film star Joel Kinnamen. Holder is a former junkie trying to make good and repair his personal life, but his early attempts to win Linden’s friendship are coldly rebuffed. Their uneasy partnership lurches through the episodes, each uncertain of the other. Part of the pleasure of the show is watching the two grow into an effective team. The other great pleasure is Sarah Linden: from her first moment on screen, it is clear that she has a complex inner life. She’s a world within herself, and the slow reveal of her character pulls the watcher along just as strongly as the murder mystery.

All four seasons of the show are currently available on Netflix.

5. Sleepy Hollow

No list of female detectives would be complete without actor Nicole Beharie’s incomparable Lt. Abbie Mills. Sleepy Hollow begins with a routine police stop gone wrong: Lt. Mills’ partner is murdered by an enormous, headless assailant who escapes on horseback. Yes: that assailant is the Headless Horseman. Soon after, Ichabod Crane staggers up from a 250 year slumber and stumbles into Lt. Mills’ path. Crane, despite his bizarre clothing and even stranger mode of speech, is the only one familiar with the Horseman’s killings. With few other options, she joins forces with him to solve her partner’s murder.

Abbie Mills plays the no-nonsense straight woman to Crane’s 18^th century zaniness, teaching him about Starbucks (he’s outraged), taxes (more furious outrage), and cars (happy adoration). By the time Season 2 rolls around, Crane is able to stand on his two feet in the modern world. He can understand slang, use a mobile phone, and serve as a capable partner for Mills instead slowing her down.

While Crane has a trippy back story replete with Freemasons, Witches, and Founding Fathers, Mills’ history is just as compelling. She and her sister are survivors of strange traumas, both familial and supernatural. The two sisters went different ways in life: while Mills became a cop, her sister Jenny bounced between mental institutions and dangerous work as a freelance relic hunter.

Sleepy Hollow is unusual in that both sisters’ traumas carry as much weight as Crane’s do. Abbie and her sister’s terrifying early encounters with the supernatural become keys to unlocking the mystery of the Horseman. And later, their tumultuous family past lays the foundation for plot twists and revelations galore. Neither Abbie nor her sister are paralyzed by fear from to the ordeals they’ve undergone: in the world of Sleepy Hollow, past traumas are often the keys to understanding even bigger mysteries.

Season 3 will air on FOX this fall.

4. The Fall

Superintendent Stella Gibson, a senior detective from Scotland Yard’s Metropolitan Police Service, arrives in Belfast to investigate the unsolved murder of a young woman. After her arrival more victims begin to pile up, all young professional brunettes found strangled in their homes. Gibson must catch the serial killer before more women are murdered or the funding runs out.

Gibson (Gillian Anderson) coolly takes control from the moment she steps into the murder investigation and she arranges a sexual assignation with a cop who catches her eye hours after her arrival. Her face is unreadable, her demeanor cool, and her motives impossible to know.

Running parallel to Gibson’s story is Paul Spector’s, the serial killer. His job, bereavement counselor, involves comforting a pair of distraught parents who recently lost a child. As he listens to their heartbreak, he wiles away the moments by drawing images of violent sexual acts being done to women. He is as cool and tightly controlled as Gibson and when he has sex with his wife that night, as passionless as her one night stand.

Their similarities make early episodes of The Fall hard to watch but as the their stories unfold, it becomes apparent that though both are survivors of childhood trauma, Superintendent Stella Gibson took a different life path than her nemesis did. And like all great detectives, it is Gibson’s connection to her prey that enables her to hunt him down. Her superpower is that she manages to hang onto her sanity and remain internally intact no matter what happens. She is fierce and magnetic and I cannot wait for Season 3 to begin.

The Fall is a BBC production and both seasons are available on Netflix. Season 3 will air in 2016.

3. Witnesses (French: Les Témoins)

French police are baffled when fresh corpses are found carefully arranged in the living room of a scenic model home—even moreso when the bizarre crime is repeated. Police Lieutenant Sandra Winckler and her partner are called in to solve the tangled mystery, but they have their work cut out for them. None of the corpses are related, all died natural deaths before burial, and the only clues suggest that the culprit is obsessed with a reclusive former police chief, Paul Maisonneuve.

Although she’s forced to work with him, Sandra’s relationship with Maisonneuve is defined by mutual distaste. He was her teacher during police training, and was convinced that she’d never make it as a cop due to fragile feminine emotions. She’s Lieutenant now, despite his disregard, and they must work together to solve the bizarre case.

The show’s central mystery is full of twists and turns, but just as compelling is Sandra’s struggle to balance her role as a mother, her romantic relationship, and her obsession with her work and the case. In a high pressure workplace, pregnancy and family care become shameful burdens and Sandra navigates as best she can, suffering from ongoing insomnia and stress as a result.

Episodes don’t have much dialogue; people live their lives in quiet desperation, filling their hours with work. After hours, they drink in cafes, sit in their homes, or take walks. It’s a world where subtext reigns, and quick glances carry worlds of meaning. Sandra Winckler, with her tight smile and grim determination, works with Maisonneuve and the pair overcome all the obstacles in their way.

Season 1 of Witnesses is available on Netflix, and Season 2 will air later this year in France.

2. Scott & Bailey

Before Scott & Bailey was ever filmed, creators Suranne Jones and Sally Lindsay sat down at a pub with a bottle of wine to discuss the type of shows they wanted to see. “We were talking about how it’d be great to have a female-led programme that wasn’t wife-of, sidekick-to, mother-of, mistress-to… all that kind of stuff,” Jones said in an interview with Cultbox. That discussion led to the creation of Scott & Bailey, a British detective series about the professional and personal lives of DC Janet Scott and DC Rachel Bailey. Lesley Sharp stars as level-headed Scott and the brash Bailey is played by co-creator Jones.

The two detectives live vastly different lives: Scott is a mother of two in a difficult marriage, while Bailey is a single and impetuous young woman. Their partnership is a balancing act; when one falls, the other woman helps her back up. As a team they hunt killers, fight for their lives when the chase gets rough, and do some of the best interrogation work I’ve ever seen on television. But at its core, Scott & Bailey is about the friendship of two women. They don’t always agree with each other, and yes, betrayals sometimes happen. Job promotions threaten to turn their friendship into a rivalry, but despite all the ups and downs, they always sort it out and hang on together.

After four seasons, Scott & Bailey is the best portrayal of female friendship currently on television, and the absorbing, gritty mysteries are an added bonus. The first three seasons are available on Hulu.

1. Happy Valley

40-something Catherine Cawood, played by the talented Sarah Lancashire, breathes new life into the old story of a vengeful man hunting down his loved one’s killer. She steps into this traditionally male role and gives an amazing performance as a West Yorkshire beat cop. From the moment she appears on screen, it is abundantly clear that she carries the world on her shoulders—she may not thrive on it but by sheer force of will, she’ll make it.

Sergeant Cawood lives in the messy aftermath of her troubled daughter’s suicide. Raped by an abusive boyfriend, Cawood’s daughter gave birth before killing herself, shattering the family, and leaving the sergeant alone to raise the abandoned grandson. That grim equilibrium comes undone when her daughter’s boyfriend is released from jail. Cawood tracks him to his old neighborhood and grows increasingly obsessed with avenging her daughter’s death.

Like any good BBC mystery, the story that unfolds is full of tangles and twists, but the heart of the story is the balance of Cawood’s grief and indomitable will. She is not a woman to be trifled with. And the show’s climax? It’s only the time I can remember where I literally leaped out of my seat and forgot to breathe.

The 1^st season of Happy Valley is available on Netflix and the 2^nd season will air later this year on BBC 1.

This list is a starting point and by no means complete; there are many more waiting to be watched and recognized. My list focuses on a women who do whatever it takes to bring criminals to justice no matter the cost. All these ladies are worthy successors to DCI Jane Tennison and represent the ongoing battle to gain recognition and excel in a profession dominated by men. Happily, most of these shows were created, written, directed, and produced by women as well.

This list of the current best female detectives is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free, my fellow mystery TV watchers, to mention your favorites in the comment section below.

Catherine Eaton is a contributor to The Stake. Catherine is a writer living in a western suburb of Chicago. She blogs over at sparrowpost.com and enjoys foraging around the neighborhood in her spare time.

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