Since it launched in July Bookish has quickly become a hit, the newest crime drama obsession for many viewers, so it should come as no surprise that U&Alibi has already renewed the show for a second series. Luckily, Mark Gatiss has teased what viewers can expect next with Yahoo UK.
The actor stars as lead Gabriel Book in the series, which he also created and co-wrote. It follows the bookseller as he helps the police on particularly puzzling cases as an amateur detective, and the story is set against the backdrop of the aftermath of the Second World War.
Bookish was renewed for a second series ahead of the release of the first, something that Gatiss exclaims is “amazing” and just doesn’t happen” in TV these days. He is already hard at work on the second series too, he says: “I’ve literally just finished writing the second series.
“I’m writing with Matthew Sweet and we’re cheek by jowl to publicising this one and shooting the second, and there’s hardly any break. And it is a lot I found, I do enjoy it, but I do need to find some way of carving out a bit of space to think about something else for a minute, but also do something else.
Bookish follows bookseller Gabriel Book as he helps the police with particularly puzzling cases. (UKTV)
“I’ve chosen to do it for that reason, it’s thrilling to create this world. I always think about how there was a marvellous time Steven Moffat and I used to say, when we were doing Sherlock, that our favourite bit was always before we started a new series. We’d sit in a room and just think about what it might be.
“I’m already thinking about, touch wood, a potential third series, and it’s like childbirth I’m starting to forget how difficult it was to write! But that’s thrilling and it is very thrilling to think about where characters might go, and what sorts of cases we might be having.
“Without giving too much away, the second story in the second series is a bit more of a spy story, there’s a murder but it’s a spy story. And I really enjoyed the slightly different clothes it wears, you know.
“And I think that’ll be interesting to try, and as much as it’s lovely to do seven suspects in a room of a country house, or something, it is fun to find those variations and play with the genre, and also the time period.”
Bookish series 2 will explore Book and Jack’s relationship in greater detail and will not just be a standard murder mystery, as it will be a spy thriller too. (UKTV)
The first series finds Book hiring a new member to his team, Jack (Connor Finch), to help with the bookshop but also with solving cases. But Book’s hiring of juvenile delinquent Jack has another purpose, because he is the son of a lost love from Book’s past.
Series 2 will continue to explore that relationship in more detail, particularly why Book is so adamant he wants to support Jack.
“It’s still 1946 because if we carry on I don’t want to race through it, because it’s an interesting period, so it’s a very busy year! So it just stretches,” the writer says of the forthcoming series.
“The story of what happened to Book, the reason Jack is there is explained in the rest of series 1 and continues in series 2. That’s probably all I can say. There are books!”
Bookish finishes airing on U&Alibi on Wednesday, 30 July at 9pm.