Thorogood wrote for many years – offering scripts to the
BBC,
ITV and independent film companies – but before 2011 the only script of his that was actually produced was a
Radio 4 afternoon drama play called
From Abstraction, about the life of mathematician
Paul Wolfskehl. In 2008, Thorogood entered the inaugural Red Planet Prize and was a chosen finalist, where he was able to pitch his 'Copper in the Caribbean' idea to
Tony Jordan. In 2011, the show was finally broadcast.
Death in Paradise Thorogood wrote five episodes of the first series of
Death in Paradise. The first episode aired in November 2011 to an overnight audience of nearly 6 million. The first episode of the second series aired in 2013 to an overnight audience of nearly 7 million. Thorogood also wrote two episodes of the second series, three of the third series, two of the sixth and seventh series, and one episode in each of the others up until series nine.
Spin-off novels In January 2014, it was announced that Thorogood had signed a deal with MIRA / Harlequin to write three Richard Poole Murder Mystery novels. The first of the three –
A Meditation on Murder – was published in hardback in January 2015 and in paperback in May 2015. The second –
The Killing of Polly Carter – was published in hardback in December 2015 and in paperback in early 2016. The third –
Death Knocks Twice – was published in hardback in July 2017 and in paperback in October 2017.
Murder in the Caribbean, the fourth mystery, was published in December 2018.
Trackers In 2018, it was announced that Thorogood was showrunning
Trackers, a major new TV series set in South Africa, and an adaptation of the novel
Trackers by
Deon Meyer. Just as
Death in Paradise pioneered the first co-production between the
BBC and
France Televisions,
The Marlow Murder Club Novels In 2020 it was announced that Thorogood was writing a new murder mystery novel,
The Marlow Murder Club. It focuses on a group of older women who form a club to investigate a series of killings in
Marlow, Buckinghamshire (where Thorogood now lives with his family). It was published in January 2021 to overwhelmingly positive reviews and was chosen as the Booksellers' Association's Book of the Month. The second book in the series,
Death Comes to Marlow, was nominated for an
Edgar Award for Best Cosy Crime novel published in the USA in 2022. The third book in the series, "The Queen of Poisons", went straight into the Sunday Times Bestseller charts at number 7.
TV Show PBS and
UKTV greenlit a
television adaptation of The Marlow Murder Club, written by Thorogood and starring
Samantha Bond, in June 2023. In March 2024 the series premiered in the UK on the Drama channel. There were two episodes each of 90 minutes.
Samantha Bond played Judith Potts with the other two members of the Club, Suzie Harris and Becks Starling, being played by
Jo Martin and
Cara Horgan respectively. The TV show was subsequently commissioned for a second series that was shot in Marlow in the summer of 2024, and a third series that was shot in 2025. Each series consisted of three separate stories employing the same cast, each story comprising two episodes of 45 minutes each. ==Speaking==