The Stranger: Tight As A Drum, Surprising Heroes and Villains

My wife and I binged The Stranger on Netflix, mostly last night, and last two of the eight episodes, today.  It's based on Harlan Coben's novel. and it's intricately plotted, with tight as a drum resolutions, just as you'd expect from a Coben work.  Indeed, even more.  Which makes it about the best detective mystery series we've seen on any kind of television in years, maybe ever.

All I'll tell you about the plot is that a husband (Adam Price) is told a secret about this wife, which, when he confronts her about it, leads to her disappearance.  That happens in the first episode.  The rest of the series shows us the husband in search of his wife.  The search leads to all kinds of stunning surprises about his family and neighbors, all of which, though seemingly beyond the most dogged detective work, tie together plausibly in the end.

That's no small feat in a genre in which far fewer twists and turns are left not fully explained.  And The Stranger does this with surprising villains and heroes at almost every turn, and moral ambiguities swirling around just about every scene.  In that sense, The Stranger is but a canvas in which the complexities of life in this world are writ large on the screen.

I haven't read Coben's novel, but I understand it takes place in America.  The Stranger unfolds in England, and feels perfectly situated there. It's peopled by top-notch British actors, including MI-5's Richard Armitage (who plays Adam Price in The Stranger) and Siobhan Finneran (DS Johanna Griffin in The Stranger) from Downton Abbey.  But everyone else in this series puts in some great acting, too, including Jacob Dudman as Adam's eldest son Thomas, and the always excellent Stephen Rea as the pivotal Martin Killane.

But I may have said too much already, and, if I were you, I'd stop reading about The Stranger, and snap it up asap.

 

Loch Ness: The Monster is Human

Checking in with a review of Loch Ness (aka The Loch), a mini-series of six episodes streaming on Acorn. I guess you could call it Northern Noir, because it does take place around Loch Ness, near Inverness in Scotland, and that's pretty far north.  It's certainly noir.  And it's good indeed.

Loch Ness of course is known for its monster, which is probably not real, though you never know for sure, especially long ago.  And the story starts off with something in the lake - a body, a human body, tied down to the bottom, with his heart ripped out, so we know that there's clearly a two-legged human monster afoot here.

There are lots of plausible suspects, which make for a taut and appealing whodunnit.   The police are flawed, from the local myopic guy in charge to the forensic psychologist brought in, but they're lifted by Annie (also a local, well played by Laura Fraser, who was also excellent in The Missing) on her first murder case, and DCI Quigley (Siobhan Finneran, who played the more reserved by equally powerful O'Brien on Downton Abby).

As is always the case with these Northern Noirs, Nordic and otherwise, there's a lot of pathology in this small town, afflicting people of all ages.  The puzzle to solve is which one led to the murders - because the body in the lake is soon joined by others, out and about on land.

The ending was both well hidden and in retrospect completely plausible, which means it's a satisfying end, which in addition to the locale and the vivid characters makes Loch Ness well worth your viewing and eminently eligible for a second season.

a different kind of murderer