Series

Wednesday

Gareth Rubin

How I wrote the newest Sherlock Holmes novel

I don’t think anyone has ever come up with a word to describe an authorized author. It’s not quite a tautology. The writer, who has been invited to write a novel continuing the body of work of another, might, possibly, be an example of literary parthenogenesis. Or, more pejoratively, karaoke. Who knows? But either way, it’s a growth industry. You will have seen the new authorized James Bond novels, the recently crafted Miss Marple and George Smiley outings that have appeared on the bookstore shelves over the past few years to some fanfare – despite the fact that those characters’ creators are very much pushing up the daisies.

1880 Sherlock Holmes Drawing (Getty)

Monday

James Walton

A return to the White Lotus

The White Lotus, now back for a third series, could perhaps be best described as Death in Paradise for elegant people. Most obviously, this is because its plots revolve around murders in an idyllic location — only with a far bigger budget, a much starrier cast and several episodes per story. But there’s also the fact that it follows the same pattern every time. So it was that season three began this week, rather like its predecessors, with some lovely scenery, a dead body and a caption reading "One week earlier." After that, we duly watched a bunch of rich, good-looking folks arriving at a luxury White Lotus resort where they were welcomed by the resolutely smiling staff and a nervous manager, before gazing round and marveling at the beauty of it all.

Lotus

Thursday

Harry Readhead

The best crime series to watch on Netflix

From our UK edition

It’s no secret that people are fascinated by crime. Nor is this a new phenomenon: writing in 1946, Orwell noted that murder gave a ‘great amount of pleasure to the public’, and proceeded to identify the common features of the gruesome and grisly crimes that gave the British most satisfaction. Psychologists, meanwhile, say that murder in particular is not only ‘a most fundamental taboo’ but ‘also, perhaps, a most fundamental human impulse’. This seems plausible. We all know those people who, stuck in a queue or sat in an interminable meeting, seem moments away from indulging that impulse. At any rate, lovers of the lurid and the macabre are spoiled for choice in the streaming age.