'Bookish' Gets a Bit More Foxed as the Case Comes Together

Book did in the war, whatever is happening with Jack, Bookish has a lot going on as it launches into the second half of its first case, "Slightly Foxed." The main case is that of the Death of Mr. Harkup, the chemist, whose death looks like suicide but is not; Harkup's charwoman, Mrs. Dredge, was the current main suspect by the end of the first half. Of course, now Book has to prove it, so "Slightly Foxed" Part 2 opens with the arrival of Mickey, the man whom Harkup's daughter, Merula, married despite her father's disapproval. Book has hired the man to come "fix his wife's car," which Trottie is a little surprised by, since she apparently doesn't actually own one.

(Book tells her to use the ones belonging to their neighbors, the Wellbeloveds, whom we met last week in passing. We're pretty sure the Wellbeloveds were not consulted beforehand.)

The case would perhaps seem a little this in terms of plot, a Miss Scarlet-style super-lightweight mystery that won't distract from everything else the show is giving us, which includes London history lessons, LGBTQ+ history lessons, and a delightful little found family being built. But there's more, and not just the Part 1 ending that suggests the new hire, Jack, is not just a newly released former prisoner. The plague pit skeletons that Baseheart found, which initially seemed like relics from a much older London that had accidentally surfaced in the Blitz, included at least one that was much fresher than the rest of the 14th-century victims.

Book had Mickey come out to "tend to his wife's car" so he could search the man's garage. Mrs. Dredge had accused Mickey of being a hardcore war profiteer, hence Harkup's animosity toward him. Merula claimed that Mickey, being super nearsighted, couldn't serve, and that his "temporary profiteer career" was small-time stuff, cigarettes, stockings, and so on. The truth, naturally, is somewhere in between, since we all know Drudge's portrayal is probably overstating the case, but the jade elephant hidden in Mickey's desk is definitely not his.

Bliss and Book drag him in for questioning, the jade figure having been identified as Harkup's. Mickey admits he did go by Harkup's flat that evening, but the man was already dead when he arrived; he took the jade figure because he figured he could get away with nabbing one small item to help him and Merula set up for their growing family, since they doubted they would ever see a dime of his money. (Merula had been disinherited in favor of Drudge.)

Mickey confirms that Drudge was there the night of the murder, "looking all shifty" as she left. However, a man also exited the premises not long after, so either she had help, or she did not ride to the man's rescue when she heard him dying upstairs.

Eric Wellbeloved (Daniel Mays) runs the local butchers with his wife, Sheila, and their assistant, Enid (Amanda Payne), so Book and Bliss get to jump the queue for Book's regular ration of bacon while poking around to see if they might know anything. Sheila is away, and Eric only notes that Baseheart, who also hangs out with them at the local pub called The Bull, seems glad to be rid of the stickler chemist.

Intrigued, Book decides to send Jack and Nora to the pub for a fact-finding mission, especially since Jack accidentally befouled the book shop's filing system by attempting to introduce the concept of alphabetical order, and Book will need to fix it. Jack and Nora talk to The Bull's owner, Eddie (Mark Benton), who reveals Harkup had been by the day he died, completely out of character, and fretting that one of their crew was a dominoes cheat. Book also dispatches Trottie to check out a list of addresses found at the chemist's, while definitely confirming that Drudge was probably hiding bottles of morphine she'd stolen as she left the shop. (Her son is a disabled vet who lives with her; it's most likely for him.)

Drudge cops to stealing the morphine, and letting Harkup think Mickey took it, but the pained cries from her son upstairs make it plain she didn't kill Harkup – after all, he was her access to the drug her son needs. That leaves our mystery man as the final suspect, whom Book clearly assumes is also responsible for the far-too-recent body in the plague pit. He pops back to the Wellbeloveds, to once again ask Eric about Shelia. Eric had claimed she was in Sheffield since mid-week, but that would have required their car – the one Trottie "borrowed" the day before.

Realizing he's been caught, Eric runs out, wielding a butcher's knife until he collapses from grief. The body in the plague pit was Sheila's, Eric and Enid were having an affair, and he offed his wife with plans to marry his new assistant. (That was the murder at the very top of the two-parter; the addresses Trottie looked in on were the various family members with whom she might have been staying.) Apparently, Enid caught him struggling to dispose of the body, and rather than turn him in, she helped him hide the evidence.

As for Harkup, he sent a vaguely threatening note to Eric, believing he was cheating at dominoes. However, Eric, knowing he'd committed a far greater crime, assumed the chemist was referring to his wife. Enid stepped up and killed Harkup to protect her future husband. The sequence where Eric then pulls a runner through the midnight streets of London, lit only by lights left over from the Blitz, is quite the ending, with Eric falling to his death through a door to a building that no longer stands.

Poor Jack is utterly flabbergasted at all this, especially the thrilling chase through the streets, and demands to know if their lives are always like this, and why they chose him to join. Book refuses to say, claiming it's just altruism. But D is outside in a car, watching them through the shop window. Whatever Book did in the war, whatever is happening with Jack, is a mystery for another case.

Bookish Season 1 continues with new episodes weekly every Sunday at 10 p.m. ET, on most local PBS stations, the PBS app, and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel. All six episodes are available to stream for members on PBS Passport. Season 2 is already filming.