NEW YORK •It was a British acting double at the International Emmy Awards in New York on Monday as Kenneth Branagh and Anna Friel won Best Actor and Best Actress for television roles as detectives.

Branagh won for the hit BBC series Wallander, adapted from the best-selling Swedish detective novels. Friel won for the ITV drama Marcella, in which she plays a London police detective hunting for a serial killer while grappling with the breakdown of her marriage.

Branagh is starring as another detective - Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot - in the movie Murder On The Orient Express.

Wallander has contributed to a huge global interest in Nordic noir, or Scandinavian crime novels and thrillers. Based on the books by Henning Mankell, the BBC series has made the prickly character of Kurt Wallander a worldwide phenomenon.

Marcella was such a hit that a second season has been commissioned. It also stars Friel, 41, and is to air in the United States on Netflix after being broadcast in Britain.

The awards are from the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, which recognises excellence in television produced outside the US and primetime shows in the US produced in languages other than English.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE