SUNDAY REVIEW / BRIGHT NEW BRIT DETECTIVE SERIES: KAREN PIRIE

REVIEW BY PILLARTOPOST.ORG DAILY ONLINE MAGAZINE 

Review By Mel Ought, PillartoPost.org media writer--British crime television has produced so many weary detectives that the genre can feel like a long night shift with no coffee break.

Good news. A new Brit series is afoot.

Called simply Karen Pirie, the two-season smash succeeds because it quietly refuses that exhaustion. Adapted from Val McDermid’s novels and led by Lauren Lyle in a performance of unforced authority, the series revives the cold-case procedural not with gimmicks but with clarity of purpose and a lead character who feels recognizably modern.

Lyle’s Karen Pirie is not a tortured savant or a trench-coated cliché. She is sharp, stubborn, observant, and occasionally funny—an investigator whose intelligence comes from persistence rather than grand gestures. The first season, based on The Distant Echo, introduces her as a junior detective suddenly thrust into the spotlight when a decades-old murder is reopened.

What might have played as workplace melodrama instead becomes a study in competence under scrutiny. Pirie earns authority scene by scene, not through swagger but through preparation. Restraint is the show’s defining virtue. Both seasons unfold across three feature-length episodes, giving the story room to breathe without padding it into shapelessness.

The pacing is deliberate but never sluggish. Flashbacks are used not as stylistic flourishes but as narrative tools, deepening the emotional weight of the past while clarifying the moral consequences of reopening old wounds. The series trusts viewers to connect the dots without being hand-held—a rarity in contemporary crime television.

There is also a subtle visual intelligence at work. Flashbacks are rendered in a sepia-toned palette, allowing viewers to orient themselves instantly without explanatory cues. Transitions are handled with quiet elegance: a car turns a corner in the past, and in the next shot a similarly colored car rounds the same bend in the present. It is not a new device, but it is seldom done this cleanly.

And yes, one wonders whether the sun ever shines in Scottish mysteries.

As a viewer, do yourself a favor and pay attention. This is not background television. If you head to the kitchen for a snack, use the pause button. Clues arrive like headlights on a dark road—some brighter than others, all easy to miss if you look away.

Lyle, for her part, is still seasoning her craft. She has a habit of swallowing the ends of sentences, quietly. I solved this by turning on the wee-sized subtitles. Scottish accents benefit from captions anyway, especially when crucial information is embedded in dialogue. Again: pay attention.

What I admired most about Karen Pirie is its common sense. The show wisely asks the question many procedurals ignore: why, exactly, are the police reopening a 25-year-old case? The answer is not bureaucratic boredom. It is public pressure, stirred up by a modern-day podcaster—an obnoxious millennial character who prods the citizenry into demanding action. Naturally, the brass assigns the job to junior detectives. The logic tracks.

Is the lead character too cute for comfort? Perhaps. But Lyle’s instincts and intelligence convince us she has the goods. And I’ll give any woman who cuts her hair into a bob the benefit of the doubt.  She is no acting rookie at 32 years (2025) nor is she a shrinking violet (5-10).  Viewers will still be surprised she isn't 5-2 and 24 years old.  But is that important?   No.

There is one familiar misstep. Why do so many television cops end up in bed with colleagues? It happens here, too. We are dealing in fiction—surely someone can invent a viable sex partner who doesn’t carry a badge.

The writing benefits from author McDermid’s source material without tipping into literary preciousness. These are crimes rooted in community, memory, and the quiet corrosions of time. The show understands that cold cases are not just puzzles; they are unresolved arguments between past and present.

Scotland’s landscapes, filmed with muted realism, reinforce that tension. Streets, pubs, and university corridors feel lived-in rather than picturesque, grounding the drama in social texture instead of postcard gloom. 

Season two, adapted from A Darker Domain, expands the canvas without losing focus. The mystery is broader, the themes more overtly political, and Pirie herself grows into her authority.

Notably, the series resists escalation for its own sake. It does not raise the body count or plunge into gratuitous darkness. Instead, it sharpens its questions: who gets remembered, who gets protected, and who is allowed to rewrite history when the spotlight returns.

Lauren Lyle remains the show’s anchor. Her performance is precise without being mannered, emotionally legible without indulgence. Pirie’s confidence is professional rather than performative—a quiet rebellion in a genre addicted to damaged heroes.

As for the future, Karen Pirie appears well positioned for continuation. The second season aired in 2025 to solid reviews and steady audience interest, and McDermid’s novels offer ample material for further adaptation. A third season has not yet been formally announced, but the show’s structure, reception, and modest scale make renewal a practical prospect rather than a speculative one.

In a crowded field of crime dramas competing to out-brood one another, Karen Pirie distinguishes itself by doing less—and doing it better. It is intelligent television that remembers something the genre often forgets: credibility is more compelling than chaos. A good detective doesn’t need to shout to be heard. Nor does she need to take off her clothes to prove she belongs in her role.

Series actor Lauren Lyle in character as Karen Pirie

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / TAKING IT SLO & STEADY

Walking up Santa Barbara Avenue in downtown San Luis Obispo, you can almost feel the pull of continuity before you see the sign. At 1901 Santa Barbara Avenue sits Del Monte Cafe, a family-run diner that has anchored this mid-California neighborhood for more than four decades. 

Its doors opened on February 2, 1981, when Debbie and Mark Collins took over an old, boarded-up corner grocery and restored it as a working café. Long before that, the building housed The Del Monte Grocery, an early-1900s neighborhood store where residents came for staples and small talk. When the grocery closed, the space sat idle for years, until it was returned to daily use as a cafe. 

The café serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner on weekdays, with shorter, brunch-centered hours on weekends. It opens early, closes early enough to signal it belongs to the rhythms of the neighborhood. The menu follows the same philosophy. 

Breakfast is the anchor, and it’s handled with restraint and confidence. Eggs arrive the way you asked for them. Potatoes are crisp, pancakes substantial, and the chicken fried steak and eggs remain the dish most often cited by regulars. Portions are generous without being excessive, and the food favors familiarity over spectacle. Nothing on the plate tries to surprise you, which is precisely the point. 

The main room is modest in scale, practical in layout, and comfortably worn. Booths show their age in the best way, softened by decades of use rather than disguised by replacement. Tables are sturdy and close enough to encourage conversation to overlap. The floor and fixtures favor durability over polish, and nothing appears to have been added simply to make a point. Broad front windows let in steady morning light, flattening shadows and giving the space an unpretentious clarity. 

It’s a room that wakes up naturally with the day. There is no performative nostalgia here. The décor does not announce itself as “retro.” Coffee cups are thick and utilitarian, the kind meant to be refilled, not photographed. Wall décor is sparse and local, accumulated rather than curated, and the overall effect is continuity rather than theme. The space feels adjusted over time by necessity: a chair replaced here, a counter repaired there. It reads as a place that has always been busy enough to matter, but never so busy that it needed reinvention. 

Service moves at the pace of the room. During peak hours, tables fill quickly and the café hums with overlapping conversations, the clink of plates, and the steady movement of servers who know both the space and the clientele. Reviews over the years reflect a simple truth: not every moment is flawless, but consistency matters more than perfection. Del Monte has endured by doing the basics well, day after day. In a region full of restaurants eager to reinvent themselves, Del Monte Cafe remains grounded by refusing to do so. It is not chasing relevance. It already has it. The room, the food, and the building itself carry the quiet authority of a place that has earned its role simply by staying open and doing the work. And when the weather agrees, it has plenty of California sunshine out in the patio.