by Thinus Ferreira

As more South African TV channels join the trend of shifting to showing locally produced series in the Sunday night 20:00-timeslot, M-Net (DStv 101) is once again pushing its entrenched movie slot to 21:00 for 10 weeks from tonight to showcase the new crime-solving series Recipes for Love and Murder. 

Like Trackers in 2019 and Reyka in 2021, M-Net is once again moving its iconic Sunday night movie berth an hour later for a third time to broadcast the 10-episode murder mystery series from M-Net, Both Worlds Pictures, AMC Networks’ Acorn TV and Global Screen.

Filmed in the Northern Cape’s Karoo, Cape Town and Scotland, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Tony Kgoroge lead the ensemble cast in this small-town mystery series based on Sally Andrew’s novels about a woman with a pet chicken.

With the series sliding between genres and moments which are both heartwarming, chilling and shocking, the TV adaptation – written by Karen Jeynes also directing with Christiaan Olwagen – has a cast that includes Jennifer Steyn as Jattie Wilson, Elton Landrew as Constable Piet, Arno Greeff as Warrant Officer Regardt Snyman, Lee Duru as Grace, Alan Committie as Cornel van Wyk, Rolanda Marais as Candy, Bennie Fourie as Dirk Burger who is the main murder suspect; and Daneel van der Walt as Anna Pretorius.

Following the murder of Martine Burger (Tinarie van Wyk Loots) in her home who was trapped in an abusive marriage, Maria Doyle Kennedy’s character of Maria Purvis, nicknamed Tannie Maria, decides to team up with her younger,
feisty colleague Jessie September (Kylie Fisher) to
solve Martine’s murder.

Meanwhile, questions swirl around Maria’s secretive past in Scotland, while the murder investigation leads to several twists and turns involving ex-boyfriends,
greedy family members, land development, religious fanatics, chaotic funerals,
and pomegranates.