Hetty Wainthropp Investigates

Hetty Wainthropp Investigates is a genteel British crime–comedy drama television series which aired from 1996 to 1998 on BBC One. The series starred Patricia Routledge as the title character (Henrietta "Hetty" Wainthropp), Derek Benfield as her patient husband Robert, Dominic Monaghan as their lodger (and her assistant) Geoffrey Shawcross and John Graham Davies as DCI Adams. Later episodes include Suzanne Maddock as Janet Frazer, a feisty young auto mechanic who sells a car to Geoffrey; their relationship develops by the end of the series. Many of the episodes have been featured on the American PBS series Mystery!.

The series is based on characters from the 1986 novel Missing Persons by David Cook (who co-wrote the series with John Griffith Bowen). The incidents in Cook's book were inspired by his own mother's real-life experiences. Before Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, there had been a feature-length pilot episode, entitled Missing Persons, originally broadcast in 1990 on ITV and featuring Tony Melody as Robert Wainthropp. However, ITV opted not to pursue a series.

Hetty Wainthropp is a retired working-class woman from Darwen in North West England, who has a knack for jumping to conclusions and solving crimes of varying bafflement which often are too minor to concern the police. Although on occasion her husband offers assistance, he more often than not tends to the home while Hetty gads about the countryside with young Geoffrey in search of resolution and justice. In many episodes Hetty seeks the help and advice of DCI Adams of the local constabulary.

This wholesome series was very popular with viewers, but despite this no further episodes have been commissioned. In a 2008 interview, Routledge said that the cast and crew had been told by the BBC at the end of the fourth series that a fifth series would be commissioned, though it never was.