What Colin Dexter did for Oxford, Julie Wassmer may well do for Whitstable. She’s the author of the Whitstable Pearl books, a series of seven whodunnits (an eighth is out next month) centred on Pearl Nolan, a restaurateur turned amateur detective in the bustling seaside town in Kent famous for its oysters. Now they’ve inspired a six-part TV series available to stream later this month starring After Life’s Kerry Godliman in the title role, with Frances Barber as her mother and Liar’s Howard Charles as DCI Mike McGuire, a London detective seconded to Kent. The series – based on the first and fifth novels plus four new mysteries written for the TV series – starts with Pearl discovering the drowned body of a local oyster fisherman.