There can be few more enduring pleasures in TV watching than settling in and spending an evening solving a nice juicy murder. And the good news is we're at absolutely no risk of ever running out of them. Poor saps are forever meeting their untimely ends in Midsomer. Old Miss Marple's always got her beak in a case. And then there's Poirot, Frost, Morse. Murders never cease.

The Brokenwood Mysteries, which returned to Prime for its second series last night, has carved out its own niche in the genre. Its first series, which screened last year, drew upon the abundance of essential murder mystery ingredients on offer here in New Zealand - small towns, eccentric locals, strange love triangles, petty infighting - and distilled them all into the fictionalised country town of Brokenwood.

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