General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

The Serial Killer's Wife

The Serial Killer's Wife is a four-part British psychological thriller miniseries released on Paramount+ in the United Kingdom and Ireland on December 15, 2023. Adapted from Alice Hunter's 2021 novel of the same name, it follows Beth Fairchild, whose husband Tom, a beloved village doctor, is arrested for murder during his surprise birthday party, forcing her to question whether she ever really knew the man she married.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Format	4-part miniseries, Paramount+ UK & Ireland original; all episodes released December 15, 2023¹^•²
Source	2021 novel by Alice Hunter, published by Avon (HarperCollins)³
Lead cast	Annabel Scholey as Beth Fairchild, Jack Farthing as Tom Fairchild, Luke Treadaway as Adam, Angela Griffin as DI Aline Edgeworth⁴
Key crew	Director Laura Way; screenwriters Suzanne Cowie and Ben Morris⁵
Production	Clapperboard Studios and BlackBox Multimedia, filmed on location in Kent⁶^•⁷
Reception	IMDb 6.1/10 from about 2,300 votes; Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 24% with no critic reviews counted⁸^•⁹
Status	Ended after one season¹⁰

Spoilers

Premise and plot

The series is set in an idyllic English town, where Beth Fairchild has prepared a surprise birthday party for her husband Tom. With most of the village present, since Tom is the beloved local doctor, the party is interrupted by police and Tom is arrested for the murder of his former assistant.⁶ Beth is certain the arrest is a mistake, but as she investigates with the help of Adam, Tom's best friend from childhood, further evidence emerges that casts doubt on his innocence and forces her to ask whether she has ignored signs of her husband's violence all along.⁵^•²

The four episodes, each titled "Chapter 1" through "Chapter 4", were all released on December 15, 2023, with runtimes of roughly 44 to 47 minutes. The final episode jumps forward a year: Beth marries Adam amidst police presence and high tension, and a secret encounter with Tom prompts her to discover the truth behind the murders and take drastic measures to protect her family.²

Cast

Annabel Scholey (The Split, Doctor Who) plays Beth Fairchild, and Jack Farthing (Poldark, Spencer) plays Tom Fairchild. Luke Treadaway (Fortitude, A Street Cat Named Bob) plays Adam, Tom's childhood best friend, and Angela Griffin plays DI Aline Edgeworth, the detective on the case.¹^•⁴ The supporting cast includes Shobna Gulati as Kiran, Morgana Robinson as Jules, Hari Dhillon as Maxwell, Julie Graham as Clover, and Tim Daish as Ray Garland.⁴

Production

Paramount+ commissioned the adaptation for the UK and Ireland in mid-2023, with Clapperboard Studios and BlackBox Multimedia producing; the two companies had previously partnered on The Ex-Wife for the same platform. Shooting happened on location in Kent, with Paul Testar, Channel 5 & Paramount+ UK & Ireland's Commissioning Editor, Drama, and Sebastian Cardwell, Deputy Chief Content Officer, UK, Paramount UK & Ireland, having greenlit the series.¹^•⁶

Kent locations used included Folkestone, Folkestone Harbour, The Warren Country Park, Saltwood, Sandgate, Knowlton Court, Abbot's Cliff, South Foreland Lighthouse, and the White Cliffs of Dover.⁷ The novel's author, Alice Hunter, a former prison interventions facilitator with a psychology degree, visited the set during filming and wrote that the series remained true to the essence of her story even where it deviated from the book.³^•¹¹

Distribution and reception

Beyond Paramount+ UK and Ireland, the series was sold to broadcasters including Antena 3 in Spain, TV4, MTV, Wowow, Virgin Media, and TV3.¹² In the UK it later became available through Paramount Plus, Sky Go, and free with ads on 5.⁴

Audience response was mixed. The series holds an IMDb rating of 6.1/10 from about 2,300 users, with individual episodes scoring between 6.9 and 7.3.⁸ Rotten Tomatoes lists a 24% Tomatometer with zero critic reviews counted and a Popcornmeter with fewer than 50 ratings, so the aggregate reflects a small sample.⁹ The Movie Database gives it 5.9.¹³ British press notices quoted by the production company included The Sunday Times calling it "a classic pot-boiling thriller" and The Telegraph describing "a gripping mix of murder mystery, domestic drama and psychological thriller".⁵

The source novel

Alice Hunter's The Serial Killer's Wife was published on May 27, 2021, and has a 3.86 average rating from more than 32,000 Goodreads readers. It is the first part of what Spanish broadcaster Antena 3 describes as the "Serial Killer's Family" trilogy, followed by The Serial Killer's Daughter and The Serial Killer's Sister; Hunter draws on her psychology background and prison rehabilitation work in the series.³^•¹⁴ Hunter later wrote that the television option, announced in an email from her editor at Avon just before Christmas 2022, was for a four-part series, and that she has since published further thrillers including Bad Apple.¹⁵

References

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026