Netflix's Crime Thriller Series From The Queen's Gambit Creator Deserves Your Attention

Back in 2020, writer, director, and co-creator Scott Frank wowed audiences with his Netflix adaptation of Walter Tevis's novel "The Queen's Gambit." Recently a new show from Frank dropped its first season on Netflix, and it's every bit as good as his last major hit.

Adapting a book series by Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, "Dept. Q" follows Carl Morck (Matthew Goode), a Scottish detective who was seriously injured in a shooting that left one officer paralyzed and another dead. Carl is still undergoing therapy for the incident when he gets assigned to be the head of a brand new division. Department Q is given a backlog of cold cases and hardly any funding, but with the help of former Syrian policeman Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), Carl begins working through cases once thought to be unsolvable.

"Dept. Q" scored a whopping 87% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 90% with audiences following its May 2025 premiere. Over the course of nine episodes, the show lays out an incredibly compelling crime drama that will probably rate head-and-shoulders above "The Queen's Gambit" to police procedural fans. "Dept. Q" is easily among the best crime dramas on Netflix, and fans of shows like "Mindhunter" need to add it to their list pronto. Frank's work with Netflix has been an undeniable success, and many viewers are hoping that the first season of "Dept. Q" is just the beginning.

Netflix notoriously cancels many of its best shows, so fans of "Dept. Q" finished watching the first season and immediately held their breath for bad news from the streamer. Instead they actually got some promising signs that "Dept. Q" could become one of those rare Netflix fan favorites that runs for multiple seasons. In June 2025, just weeks after "Dept. Q" made its debut, Netflix submitted the series for Emmy consideration. That's not exactly confirmation that a second season is on Netflix's to-do list, but typically the company doesn't cancel series it deems worthy of award consideration. 

The best news for "Dept. Q" fans is that series creator Scott Frank finished working on the first season while already dreaming up his plan for Season 2. Since the show is based on a book series that gives the TV adaptation a blueprint going forward, Frank plans to take advantage of that. He told Collider, "The second book in the series is quite good, so I've got a great idea for a second season. It is another cold case and also a current case, at the same time, that they're looking into. So, I would do that." Frank also said that if "Dept. Q" gets a second season, there's a chance that he would make it six episodes long instead of nine. That's maybe not what fans of the show want to hear, but the fact that "Dept. Q" is already set up for a longer run is definitely encouraging. 

If you happen to power through "Dept. Q" and find yourself dying for another mystery in the same vein, then we've got some good news for you. After completing "The Queen's Gambit" but before creating his most recent Netflix series, Scott Frank worked with AMC to launch another thrilling crime drama. "Monsieur Spade" has a 77% score with critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 67% score with viewers, and even though it might not stand toe-to-toe with "Dept. Q," it's absolutely still worth your time.

"Monsieur Spade" is set 20 years after the events of the Dashiell Hammett novel "The Maltese Falcon," a story that inspired one of the greatest mystery movies ever made. Luckily, you don't need to have read the book or watched the 1941 film adaptation to follow what's happening in the AMC show. 

The protagonist is "Falcon" detective Sam Spade (Clive Owen), who's now retired and trying to live out a peaceful life in southern France. Unfortunately, when half a dozen nuns are slaughtered near Sam's home, he finds himself drawn into a new investigation that has serious implications for the entire town. Sam may be a storied detective, but he's still not quite prepared for where this one last case will lead him.