who regularly discover bodies and/or cleverly solve the crime before the local bumbling police constable can do it. "Father Brown" is one of those shows on PBS - he's the town priest who usually either finds the neatly dead but unmangled body (the murder rate in his bucolic little town is amazing, but they are usually committed tidily with minimum blood) or is involved somehow with the deceased, and the cop is an idiot who is always wrong about whodunit, while Father Brown follows the clues and solves the murder. "Midsomer Murders" is another one, although in that one the cops are the heroes, and the murders tend to be a little more violent and bizarre than is typical. The murder rate in this area is also quite remarkable, probably worse than Detroit, per capita.
There are also many series of books following the same basic pattern: the "detective," often a woman who runs a bookstore or a bakery or an art studio (and she's beautiful but lonely, so there's that angle) stumbles upon a corpse; the police are stupid and ignore her, except for the handsome one, and with the help of her cat she solves the crime. These usually take place in small towns in New England.
I prefer the dark, brooding Scandinavian crime stories but I guess there's a market for this formula.
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