Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a British crime-comedy drama television series which aired from 1996 to 1998 on BBC One. The series starred Patricia Routledge as the title character, Derek Benfield as her patient husband Robert, Dominic Monaghan as their boarder (and her assistant) Geoffrey Shawcross and John Graham Davies as DCI Adams. Many of the episodes have been featured on the American PBS series Mystery!.
A feature-length pilot episode, originally broadcast in 1990, was based on the 1986 novel, Missing Persons by David Cook (who co-wrote the series with John Griffith Bowen). The incidents in Cook's book were inspired by his own mother's real-life experiences.
Hetty Wainthropp is a retired working-class woman in Lancashire, North West England, who has a knack for jumping to conclusions and solving crimes of varying bafflement which often are too minor to concern the police. Although on occasion her husband offers assistance, he more often than not tends to the home while Hetty gads about the countryside with young Geoffrey in search of resolution and justice. In many episodes Hetty seeks the help and advice of DCI Adams of the local constabulary.
In order to make ends meet and to stop a local, homeless teenager from becoming a juvenile delinquent, Hetty Wainthropp, a sprightly, intelligent pensioner looking for a new challenge, decides to become a private investigator much to the disgust and disbelief of her lazy husband. Once she has made up her mind she becomes an unstoppable force and, led by Hetty, the three set forth to investigate crimes of less interest to the local police force in and around their little village in the beautiful Lancashire countryside. Written by Mark Smith
