Emilia Fox plays the title character, a spy who retires to Panicale only to find the village less tranquil than advertised. The six-part first series (Acorn TV, May 2022) opens with a body in the olive grove and ends with Sylvia trading her Glock for local gossip and grappa. Tara Fitzgerald’s Isabel provides the family tie, while Giovanni Cirfiera’s by-the-book Capitano Riva tolerates the newcomer’s interference because her hunches keep being right.
Series two arrived in July 2024, expanding to three 90-minute films that send Sylvia undercover at a truffle festival and into a 30-year-old missing-person case. Cuperman and Griffiths write every script, keeping the puzzle-box plotting tight and the Italian locations sun-drenched. Route 24 shoots on location around Lake Trasimeno; cinematographer Patrick Jordan makes the terracotta glow almost sinister.
A third set of three episodes is already green-lit, again starring Fox and Cirfiera, with filming scheduled for late 2025. The show’s modest episode count lets each mystery breathe without padding, and Fox’s crisp delivery of one-liners in fluent Italian gives the Brit-abroad premise real bite.
Production Details
Acorn TV / 2 Seasons / 6 Episodes / 2022 - Present
Created by: Rachel Cuperman, Sally Griffiths
Showrunner(s): Emilia Fox, Rachel Cuperman, Dudi Appleton
Writer(s): Rachel Cuperman, Sally Griffiths
Producer(s): Patricia Rybarczyk Candida Julian-Jones
Cinematography: Patrick Jordan, Sandro De Pascalis
Main Cast
Emilia Fox as Sylvia Fox
Tara Fitzgerald as Isabel Vitale
Giovanni Cirfiera as Capitano Giovanni Riva
Matteo Carlomagno as Matteo Vitale
Imma Piro as Antonella Vitale
Marianne Leoni as Raffaela Tasso
Jose Neira Tejeda as Ricardo Garcia
Mehdi Meskar as Samir Hamdani
Elena Di Cioccio as Roberta Barzini
Issy Knopfler as Alice Shepherd
Jamie Bamber as Adam Haines
Luigi Di Fiore as Ercole Guerra
