FOX’s new mystery series, Murder in a Small Town, premieres Tuesday, September 24.
It’s adapted from L. R. Wright’s nine-book series about detective Karl Alberg, who hopes to escape his city cop life for quieter coastal living but still finds more secrets and murder amidst the small town.
Rossif Sutherland plays Karl Alberg, while Kristin Kruek portrays Cassandra Mitchell, the local librarian, and Alberg’s love interest and muse.
TV Fanatic has the pleasure of chatting with Sutherland and Kruek, where they shared their enthusiasm for the series and how it differed from other crime procedurals.
Both actors shared that while the weekly cases were fascinating, the series’s draw will be the development of Karl and Cassandra’s relationship. We can’t wait to see that blossom.
Check out the interview below:
So, how familiar were you with the Karl Alberg and Cassandra mystery series when you booked Murder in a Small Town?
Kristin: You know, I wasn’t. The books were from the 1980s, so they’re not new books.
However, I was familiar with the project because two producers had come to me in 2021 asking if I wanted to come on board as a producer. I had been busy then, so I had said no, but that’s how I knew it. I didn’t know anything apart from that.
Rossif: I didn’t know about the books. I learned they were books, so I quickly read some before the audition.
Then, I discovered that my father, the late Donald Sutherland, had been involved with this project 30 years ago. So, I was quite ignorant going in and got a lot of information afterward. But they’re lovely books. They’re very quick reads.
Kristin: They are re-releasing them.
What appealed to each of you about your characters?
Kristin: I loved Cassandra because she’s contained in herself. She knows who she is. She knows what she wants. She has pursued her ambitions. She’s focused on community and the health of communities.
She’s chosen to be a single woman for a long time. She’s not been in many relationships, and I like that she has chosen herself and chosen to pursue her dreams. She was funny and charming and odd, and I enjoyed her.
Rossif: I grew up watching Columbo. I always loved this jovial fellow who would come into a room, and he wouldn’t quite know what he was going to say or do, but all the while, he was smarter than anybody else.
While Karl Aberg is not Columbo, they share qualities in the sense that he is a people person. He’s curious.
He has an instinct for people, and I liked playing a detective who wasn’t somebody who was out there trying to intimidate people, and I got to play an American cop who didn’t like his gun.
He’s a good man overall. He also has the vulnerability of somebody who wears his heart on his sleeve. However, he’s the boss, a cop, and in a position of power and intimidation.
I liked to be able to play what I consider a modern man, somebody who’s vulnerable and not embarrassed to be somebody who recognizes the power of being an open book.
That’s what he will try to be in his relationship with Kristin’s character because that’s why his marriage failed. It was silence, and the silence was over.
So, what can you tease about Karl and Cassandra’s relationship? What will the dynamic be like, especially as they mix business with pleasure?
Kristin: There’s a bit of everything between Karl and Cassandra. They have wonderful, warm moments and lots of conflict.
There’s also the inevitable struggle of having a partner whose career is law enforcement. Cassandra has to face some of Carl’s past. It ends up being beautiful, fun, sad, and also threatening. A lot happens.
Rossif: She’s a fascination to him. She’s the mystery he can’t solve, and he’s madly, passionately in love with this woman. He can imagine a life with her, and the dilemma will be how they can possibly make that work. I don’t know if I’ve answered your question.
You did. And I can’t wait to see that. From what I’ve seen so far, you guys have wonderful chemistry.
So far, the series seems more like a whydunit than a whodunit. They almost seem to know the killer from the beginning, but they’re trying to figure out a motive.
Rossif: I’d agree with you.
Is that format going to continue?
Kristin: The show is more structured around a whodunit. There are aspects of a whydunit.
I think the motivation for these killers or people who are committing crimes because it’s not just killers is important. You don’t always know who it is, but sometimes you do. So, it’s a mix. Each episode will have a slightly different structure.
Rossif: You’ll always know the motivation, regardless of its order. That’s the commonality. We want to know why people did what they did.
In some shows, you’ll only truly understand who did it close to the end. There is no one formula for storytelling, at least not yet.
Kristin: Each episode has a different energy because each crime is different. The guest stars bring an entirely new flavor to those episodes, which gives them a lot of freshness.
Rossif: They exist as standalones. The thread between them is very much the relationship between both characters.
I don’t want to say tug-of-war, but they are trying to negotiate how to make their independent, complicated lives work so that they can be together.
He’s a recently divorced man with two teenage daughters, and she’s an independent woman who’s not particularly imagined a life with a father and a cop. But love is what makes her not want to run away.
It’s that fragile thing that we try to preserve. It’s an aspect of this story, and there’s so much more to be done with it: trying to define what love means when you’re halfway through your life and want the other person to feel whole and satisfied, yet not alone.
That is truly fascinating. I can’t wait to see more. The series includes nine books. Do you know how faithful they will be to them and how many they might cover in the first season?
Rossif: Ian Weir, the head writer, has been intimately involved with these books for 30 years. He knew the writer and the family of the estate. Everybody’s still very much involved.
It’s not a carbon copy. But it’s certainly inspired by it. We stay close to the show’s spirit and who these characters were. We only have nine books, and I think we’ve used six. We will run out of material if we do this again. We’ll take these characters into something that’s not on paper yet.
Sounds like fun. And for our final question, why do you think audiences will enjoy Murder in a Small Town?
Kristin: There are a few reasons why people will enjoy it. It’s a no-brainer for people who love murder mysteries. It’s a show made for them, but I think it’s about the characters, the love story, and the town itself.
It’s the heart that beats behind the murders. I feel like that’s what makes this show special. It’s what makes it unique and will bring people back.
Rossif: it is pretty close to bedtime and won’t keep you awake. It’s not going to haunt you. It’ll entertain you.
Hopefully, you’ll be able to rest on your pillow thinking of these characters whom you’ve fallen in love with, and you’ll come back the next week, and we’ll give you more entertainment.
But it’s not there to haunt you. It’s not there to speak to the psychology of people, as in, monsters surround us. That’s not the exercise we’re performing.
We’re trying to understand what makes a good person do a bad thing.
What makes them not so good a person do an awful thing? Does it make them awful? I’m not quite sure.
But we’re not there to haunt people. This is not a story that’s led by these very dark and troubled characters. So, in that sense, it is very different from many of these TV crime shows.
It speaks to another generation of entertainment that resembles shows like Columbo. There’s a warmth to that, which is a little absurd, that defines warmth and crime. Its hot chocolate spiked with whiskey.
From the advanced screen we’ve seen, you will love Murder in a Small Town as much as these two do.
Murder in a Small Town premieres on Fox on Tuesday, September 24, at 8/7c.
Please return here after to read our review.