Maria Doyle Kennedy and Tony Kgoroge lead M-Net’s Recipes for Love and Murder

Can a woman with no detective experience, whose closest companion is her pet chicken solve a complicated murder investigation? That’s the question in Recipes for Love and Murder, the new small-town mystery series coming to MNet.

Starring the award-winning Maria Doyle Kennedy and Tony Kgoroge, the 10-episode series is as humorous and heartwarming as it is chilling and shocking. It deftly flits between moods and genres and will make you chuckle as easily as it will make you gasp. It’s the perfect show to take over the primetime slot that traditionally has belonged to the Sunday night movie.

A production by M-Net, Both Worlds Pictures, AMC Networks’ Acorn TV, and Global Screen, the series is directed by Christiaan Olwagen and Karen Jeynes (who is also the show’s writer) and is based on the acclaimed Tannie Maria Mystery novels by Sally Andrew. Filmed in Cape Town, the Karoo and Scotland, Recipes for Love and Murder is set in Eden, a fictional Karoo town where everything is either freshly baked or homemade, where everyone knows each other, and where the biggest crime for police to solve is finding out who keeps stealing a tractor just to drunkenly drive it around. 

The Gazette, Eden’s local newspaper (or “newsletter”, as the town doctor calls it) is struggling to make ends meet. So, in an attempt to please advertisers, its boss Hattie Wilson (played by Jennifer Steyn) decides to start running an advice column. Recipe columnist Maria Purvis (Doyle Kennedy) does what anyone who wants to keep their job would do – she pivots and starts a new identity as Tannie Maria, your friendly newspaper advice aunty. But the first letter that catches her attention is from a woman in an abusive marriage, and shortly after Tannie Maria’s advice to her is published, the woman – Martine Burger (Tinarie van Wyk) – is murdered in her home. This shakes up the town, and especially the women at the Gazette, resulting in Maria teaming up with her younger, feisty colleague Jessie September (played by exciting newcomer Kylie Fisher) to solve Martine’s murder. The police now have a real – albeit gruesome – crime to solve, led by the mysterious and icy (yet secretly soft) top cop Khaya Meyer (Tony Kgoroge), whose story unfolds as the season progresses.

The Cast:

The stellar cast of Recipes for Love and Murder is rounded off by Elton Landrew (Trackers, Ellen: The Ellen Pakkies Story, Fiela se Kind) as Constable Piet; Arno Greeff as Warrant Officer Regardt Snyman; Lee Duru (In My Country, Mama Jack) as Grace, a domestic worker whose story shakes up the town; award-winning comedian Alan Committie as Cornel van Wyk, Martine’s boss; Rolanda Marais as Candy, Martine’s sister; Bennie Fourie as Dirk Burger, the main murder suspect; and Daneel van der Walt as Anna Pretorius, Martine’s grieving best friend. 

Will Maria and Jessie prove an asset or hindrance to the investigation? Can they catch Martine’s killer, or will the killer catch them first? Was it really the husband who did it – or is the real culprit still hiding in the shadows? And why is Maria so secretive about her past in Scotland?

Tune in every Sunday at 8pm on M-Net, DStv Channel 101, starting 20 March.