Review: ‘Wicked Little Letters’ Comedy Mystery Falls Flat

No one does a “whodunit” like the British. There is something morbidly captivating about the quiet charm of English country life disrupted by violent murder. An act of evil abandon amidst a culture of politeness and restraint. The criminal mastermind, the iron fist in a velvet glove.

But it’s not all death and gore. Some “whodunits” involve lesser offenses. Such is the case in Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters — more like a “who wrote it” — a comedy based on a true story about a much-forgotten libel mystery from the 1920s.

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Madeleine Kearns

Madeleine Kearns is a former staff writer at National Review.

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No one does a “whodunit” like the British. There is something morbidly captivating about the quiet charm of English country life disrupted by violent murder. An act of evil abandon amidst a culture of politeness and restraint. The criminal mastermind, the iron fist in a velvet glove.

But it’s not all death and gore. Some “whodunits” involve lesser offenses. Such is the case in Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters — more like a “who wrote it” — a comedy based on a true story about a much-forgotten libel mystery from the 1920s.