Martha's Vineyard Mysteries

Jeff Jackson moves to Martha's Vineyard for a quiet retirement and instead keeps tripping over corpses. Jesse Metcalfe plays the retired Boston detective across all four films, paired with Sarah Lind as Dr. Zee Madieras, the island's medical examiner and his old friend, who supplies the forensics while he supplies the hunches. Eric Keenleyside recurs as Zee's father, the local police chief, with Chelsea Hobbs and Sunita Prasad rounding out the regulars. There's a slow-burn pull between Jeff and Zee that the series takes its time with.

There are four films, released in 2020 and 2021, inspired by Philip R. Craig's island novels. The tone runs a shade more grown-up and moody than the average Hallmark whodunit: salt-air settings, real grief, and a running thread about a bullet still lodged near Jeff's spine from a case that won't let him go. The mysteries themselves stay clean and the violence stays offscreen, but there's an edge here the cozier franchises don't reach for. If you like your sleuthing with sea fog and a little unfinished business, it's worth the ferry ride.