Death in Paradise review: Not much more than a lavish brochure for the local tourist boards

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Yet it doesn’t really deliver on its promise, leaving it as not much more than a lavish brochure for the local tourist boards. I also recall, with Columbo, the way that even though you knew that when Vincent Price, Donald Pleasence or – gloriously – Johnny Cash appeared, it was them what dunnit, the chess games between them and Peter Falk’s Columbo would still be enthralling. Instead of an eccentric but still vaguely credible cop, we get Ralf Little as DI Neville Parker playing the idiot Englishman abroad, and the rest of the St Marie police squad running through every Caribbean cliche in the Rough Guide to Fictional West Indian Territories. Never mind Columbo for a benchmark, though, there was a children’s TV stop-motion animation series a few years ago called Rastamouse, also set in the West Indies.