Before we decide what to watch of an evening, my husband and I like to have a little row, which usually goes along the same lines, and occurs as we’re nit-combing the kids in the bath. He argues for some sort of Nordic Noir, with a white-grey backdrop and a massive body count. I push for some bouncy house porn where you get to see lovely interiors and the jeopardy lies in whether they’ll get the right shade of Farrow & Ball for the basement cinema.

Imagine our delight as we stumbled across The Stranger, which beautifully combines both our jams in one juicy series. Based on a Harlan Coben novel, the first episode tells the story of a man whose life is turned upside down when an attractive but sinister young woman in a baseball cap (the stranger) reveals a disturbing secret about his wife Corinne. Think Doctor Foster meets The Bridge.

The opener begins briskly, with a naked young man charging through a wood (Harlan loves woods) while some teenagers get drunk around a bonfire. Some shit has gone down, and we spend the rest of the ep not finding out what. My interest was piqued by the appearance of Jennifer Saunders, who plays a jolly café owner, and Dervla Kirwan, who I’ve been a fan of since Ballykissangel. Dervla’s character Corinne did something very naughty, but just as she’s about to tell her suspicious husband all, she goes missing. Meanwhile, a body is discovered… and in a twist on the usual format, it turns out to be a decapitated alpaca. IKR?! I was on the edge of my sofa.

The wonderful Siobhan Finneran plays DS Johanna Griffin, called in to investigate the aforementioned deceased camelid. She’s brilliantly channelling Lesley Sharpe in Scott & Bailey, but I kept being distracted by her excellent hair (auburn, wavy, great fringe) and even better clothes. At one point she was wearing a really beautiful blue blouse that matched her eyes, and I desperately wanted a QVC-style graphic overlay to tell me where I could buy it. But I can’t go to a shop – or a hairdresser, for that matter – for months, so maybe it’s best I remain in ignorance, with greying roots.

Then there are the houses. Corinne and Adam Price live in a gorgeous red-brick double-fronted Victorian pile with a ginormous garden that rivals Fleabag’s Dad’s. I know Adam’s a lawyer, but, given that one of his clients is an ex-copper refusing to sell his shabby terraced house to venal property developers, I can’t imagine he’s exactly raking it in. Yet they have at least three floors and eleventy bedrooms, and the kids’ school is like a cosier version of Eton. Their kitchen is to die for, and in one scene, I found myself ignoring the dialogue because I was looking at their linen basket and wondering if it came from John Lewis. Jennifer Saunders lives in a home that appears permanently sun-drenched, and her Brown Sugar Café is far too American for its British small-town setting. What’s her secret? It’s whatever allows her to sustain an impractical Epicurean business in a punishing economic climate, that’s what.

So obviously I am loving it, and looking forward to the next episode, when we can find out how the alpaca’s head ended up in that wardrobe, which is probably from Habitat, or maybe even Heal’s. I can’t wait to find out.

• The Stranger, Netflix, 30 Jan (8 episodes)