John Powers

German author Jenny Erpenbeck is one of the most acclaimed writers of the last 25 years. Her new novel "Kairos," just out from New Directions, tells the story of a 19-year-old female student in East Berlin who falls in love with a much older male writer in the run-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Starring an excellent Shaun Evans, Endeavour is an origin story. It charts the pilgrim's progress of brilliant, headstrong Endeavour Morse as he goes from an idealistic young Oxford cop to the boozing, vaguely misanthropic detective made famous by Thaw.

Happy Valley, the BBC crime series that became an instant sensation when it premiered in 2014, is created by Sally Wainwright. It centers on a woman police sergeant in the Calder Valley of West Yorkshire, it set the gold standard for crime series anchored by complicated women.