At the Bookish season 2 preview at BFI Southbank, London, on Tuesday, August 18, news broke that the show will continue, with season 3 announced and a two-part Christmas special already filmed.
The show’s a hit, having sold to over a hundred countries. Creator Mark Gatiss stars as Gabriel Book, a bookshop owner in post-War London. As he described the show, “it’s about an antiquarian bookseller who solves crimes on the side. It’s a gay man in a lavender marriage, a marriage of convenience with his childhood best friend Trottie. And his close relationship to Scotland Yard via a mysterious letter from Winston Churchill.”
As additional promotion for the series launch, U&alibi is setting up ‘Your Book’s Bookshop’, a two-day installation on August 25 and 26 in London that will provide visitors their own cover stories. As described, “Using vintage typewriters, professional writers will create a bespoke first page of each guest’s fictional cover story, introducing carefully created aliases, occupations, and backstory inspired by Bookish’s world of hidden lives, secret identities, and perfectly constructed alibis.” Gatiss called it “the closest you’ll get to actually living inside the show.” Free tickets are suggested.
Bookish airs on U&alibi in the UK. The second season begins on August 26 with two episodes being shown. As with the first season, the six episodes make up three stories. The first, “Memento Mori”, written by Gatiss, stars Jason Watkins as a medium killed during a seance. Watkins also starred in 2022’s Count Magnus, one of the BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas, which Gatiss wrote and directed. (Trivia: Watkins’ character is named Harold Sneed. Sneed was also the name of a character in “The Unquiet Dead”, the first Doctor Who episode Gatiss wrote, which also featured a seance.)
Said Gatiss, there’s “a close circle of everyone joining hands, no one apparently breaks the circle, and yet someone is stabbed. I’m driven by an animus against mediums — they’re grief leeches.”
“Dead Man’s Whistle”, episodes three and four, co-written with Matthew Sweet (who’s also authored the novelizations of seasons 1 and 2), is set in a tailor’s shop.
The season concludes with “Killer Nacht”, which delves into more of the backstory of shop assistant Connor Finch, son of Book’s past love Felix. The two visit Germany to find out what happened to him in a story co-written by Ian Hallard, Gatiss’ husband.
Other guest stars this season include Simon Callow, Miranda Richardson, and Rupert Graves as Colonel Reggie Winters. Gatiss’ previous hit detective show, Sherlock, also featured Graves as Detective Inspector Lestrade. Graves described the character as “a posh English military guy who’s got a very sentimental side.”
The dashing military man seems to hit it off with Trottie, putting her arrangement with Book in jeopardy. Asked about the role, Gatiss said, ” She meets him at the seance in episode one, and then he keeps turning up. And under the rules of the arrangement, it’s all perfectly alright. They sort of get a little out of their depth is all I can say.”
I asked him about deciding to cast his former co-worker, and Gatiss responded, “I was lying in bed with Polly [Walker, who plays Trottie] in series one, telling her my plans for series two, and the character who became Colonel Winters. And I went, oh, I know exactly. And then I had to check that, you know, she hadn’t had a fight with him at some point. So it was all right. But that was lovely, yeah.”
The two-part Christmas special, “The Crown of Destiny”, has already been filmed, and Bookish season 3 begins filming this November.
As for when Americans can watch… the US edition of the second season novelization is due out January 5, which might provide a hint as to when the show will be available. Season 1 ran on PBS in January 2026.
I asked Gatiss if he thought there was anything in particular Americans needed to know about the show. He responded, with a laugh, “When it’s on. Why it’s on at 10 o’clock at night. That’s what I want to know.”
