‘Death and Other Details’ review: Hulu’s answer to ‘Knives Out’ stars Mandy Patinkin on a cruise

Late in the Hulu murder mystery “Death and Other Details,” a lawyer who acts as a fixer for a wealthy family describes his career. “At first it’s fantastic — a bunch of people spinning around like the world just came unglued and they’re all looking at you like you’re the only person that can stick it back together again.” But then, he says, you blink and you’re 60. “And they all have families and big, messy, beautiful lives. And you’re the guy with a file full of someone else’s secrets no one wants to sit with at a party.”

Richly written, with both humor and attention to, well, death and other details, the show might be derivative — and yet another outing about the ultra-rich — but it’s so much fun, I’m not sure I care. Mandy Patinkin stars as Rufus Cotesworth, “the world’s greatest detective,” in a 10-episode series that feels like Hulu’s answer to “Knives Out.” The sleuth (with his weird, unplaceable accent) is on a swanky Mediterranean cruise when there’s a murder. The culprit could be any of the pampered guests or exhausted crew, but nobody is quite who they seem. “If you want to solve a crime,” says Rufus, “you must first learn to see through the illusion.”

He’s introduced in a flashback, after a woman is killed in a car bomb, leaving her little girl orphaned. The woman was a family friend of the Colliers, who have more money than they know what to do with, and they take in the child to raise. She’s a wary little girl named Imogene. They’ve also called in Rufus to unravel the mystery of whodunit.

But he can’t. Imogene never forgives him.

Two decades later, she’s a young woman (a terrific Violett Beane) with an immaculate blond bob and a glamorous 1930s-inspired wardrobe. She’s gorgeous and smart and moves among the rich without being rich herself, which presents its own complications. She’s a guest of the Colliers on this cruise. Rufus is there as well — an unexpected turn of events for her; not so much for him — and after a tense reunion, they become an unlikely duo working to solve the shipboard murder.

Trains, mansions, cruise ships: They’re terrific settings for a frothy whodunit because they create a finite list of suspects, all of whom are cutting side-eyes at one another. One person has a rap sheet “longer than an overwritten metaphor,” which gives you a sense of the piquant energy here. But a larger conspiracy might be at work, with a shadowy figure, who may not even be on the ship, pulling all the strings.

In the wrong hands, this kind of forever-unraveling narrative — dense with plotting and scheming and secrets to be revealed — can lose steam in a multi-episode series. Not here. I have real admiration for how this stylish pip of a mystery has been crafted by show creators Heidi Cole McAdams and Mike Weiss (both worked on ABC’s sadly truncated “Stumptown” together).

The series is playful with form; at one point, Imogene tries to retrace Rufus’ steps by imagining herself as him; it’s a very funny performance that asks Patinkin to be Imogene-as-Rufus. But overall, the series is grounded in an appreciation for, and a facility with, the genre’s necessary architecture. Certain tropes first need to be established in order to be later tweaked. A new wrinkle is revealed in each episode as the story falls deeper into a spiral of what is going on?! But it has to be compelling and make some kind of sense, and that’s where “Death and Other Details” excels.

Patinkin’s irascible Rufus is a wonderful invention, filled with the actor’s particular combination of intensity and warmth, but he is enough of an enigma himself to make you wonder why he failed to unmask who killed Imogene’s mother. “I never gave up on the truth,” he tells her, “the truth gave up on me.” She can only scoff, because Rufus is slippery and unreliable. Is he a fraud or the real deal? Perhaps a bit of both.

The supporting cast is terrific as well, among them Jere Burns as the self-loathing family fixer; Linda Emond, adding another ridiculous accent to the proceedings as the Interpol investigator; “Mad Men” alum Michael Gladis as an obnoxious guest on the cruise who is more complicated and interesting than he initially appears; and Rahul Kohli as the ship’s striving owner.

The setting is all about luxury, even if the scenes on deck have an artificial shot-on-a-soundstage look to them. That’s likely the result of logistical and budgetary compromises but it’s underscored any time two characters go off in a smaller boat and suddenly they are very clearly out on real water with real light.

A century ago, Agatha Christie became a one-woman cottage industry of whodunits that avoided protracted violence in favor of the pleasures of thinking through a problem — using one’s “little gray cells,” as her fictional investigator Hercule Poirot would often put it. In one of her novels, she describes a group of possible suspects as outwardly composed. But within? Their thoughts “ran in a circle like squirrels in a cage,” preoccupied with “What next? Who? Which?”

Those are the questions that keep the engine of a whodunit running. And “Death and Other Details” has plenty of fuel.

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'DEATH AND OTHER DETAILS'

3.5 stars (out of 4)

Rating: TV-MA

How to watch: Hulu

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