TV REVIEW : A Cozy British Mystery Unfolds in KCET Tonight

Toss a log on the fire and heat up a kettle of tea--preferably English--because that genre known as the cozy British mystery novel unfolds with leisurely suspense tonight with “Artists in Crime” (on “Mystery!” 9-11 p.m., KCET Channel 28).

The BBC production, hosted by Diana Rigg (in a striking dress that makes her look like Hiawatha), introduces to television the popular fictional British sleuth Chief Inspector Roderick Alleyn of Scotland Yard, who solved diabolical crimes in 30 novels penned by the late New Zealand mystery writer Ngaio Marsh.

Alleyn’s courtly manners and vaguely introverted demeanor are perfectly mirrored by the suave Simon Williams. In casting that sounds like a jingle in a word game, Williams’ second-in-command is William Simon, an actor who is splendidly droll without the Nigel Bruce/Dr. Watson buffoonery.

Director Silvio Narizzano’s opening image--a vehicle rolling down a dark street with big round yellow headlights glowing like satanic eyes--sets the mood. Nearby, a bohemian artist is dangling from a noose in his townhouse, while our aristocratic detective is on holiday, bobbing in a little boat on a gorgeous English pond flirting ever so lightly with an oil painter (Belinda Lang) who later (in the novels) will become his wife.

That’s the last detail you need to know, but it’s a provocative jumping-off point to bedevilment involving a coterie of artists in a summer school whose beauteous naked model (the sublime Siri Neal) is a cheeky blackmailer who is killed most cleverly. One of the model’s chi-chi pals offers a posthumous bull’s-eye: “She was an evil little beast and terrific fun . . . the model we love to hate.”

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Alleyn has his dark side, falling into catatonia and depression at the mere sight of bloody death (derived from World War II experiences). “It’s nothing,” he tells his paramour in the best stiff upper-lip fashion. “It’s something I’ll have to live with.”

After all, to this dapper detective (to quote from one of the later novels), murder is a “crime in bad taste.”