I took a mini European vacation recently — without leaving the comfort of my own home. In between finishing the readable draft of Book3 and starting revisions, I bought a first class seat on a murder mystery tour of Europe.
It’s all easily done if you subscribe to a few of those streaming video services like Netflix or Acorn TV. Good value, I think — even if you are already paying about $200 a month for your bundled cable TV, internet and (useless) landline.
Missing girls and small town secrets are the common themes which link the three TV series that took me from the bleak landscape of a coal-mining village in the Czech Republic to a sunny coastal resort town on the Adriatic in Italy and then to an upscale (is there any other kind?) gated community in England.
It should be said upfront that none of the three series suffer because of the necessity for subtitles. On the contrary, as I discovered earlier this year watching the fabulous French serial killer thriller La Mante, subtitles provide a welcome relief from the need to strain your ears because of the incredibly poor sound quality of many flat screen TVs.
Wasteland
Wasteland is the very apt title of the 8-part HBO series set in a village on the Czech-Polish border where properties are being bought up and razed by a rapacious mining conglomerate looking to expand its operations. Nestled in the shadow of a towering, medieval castle (now a juvenile delinquent center for boys) the village is divided between those who want to take the money and move on and those who want to stay in the only community they’ve ever known.
Heading up the latter group is Hana Sikorova, the mayor of the village, and the mother of two daughters. One of them goes missing after getting off the bus from school. This, right after a donkey, owned by the day care facility which Sikorova runs, is found dead strung up in a tree with barbed wire. The initial suspicion is that the mining conglomerate which Sikorova is battling is behind the two events. But, other suspects with other motivations emerge as the secrets of the community unfold.
Brutal, Bleak — & Excellent
The brutality and bleakness of the opening hardly let up in any of the remaining episodes. The rape of the community by mining interests is mirrored in a graphically violent assault perpetrated against one of the sex workers who service the men involved with the mine. But it is the gritty little details, for example, oilcloth table coverings, the overflowing ashtrays, congealing spills on stovetops, and the visible fluff on cheap acrylic sweaters– that evoke the true bleakness of life in this wasteland of a village. In the end, you’re left wondering, why wouldn’t you take the money and run?
Tangled Lies
Two missing girls are at the heart of Tangled Lies, a mystery that unfolds in San Benedetto del Tronto, a lovely, sunny coastal town on the sparkling Adriatic — a location that appears to be a million miles from the gray, foggy landscape of the Wasteland. Here, the tree-lined boulevards run alongside a wide golden beach that runs to the edge of calm blue water.
The lead female character is Nora, a psychologist and single mother, who has recently moved to the town with her teenage daughter Camille. The series, on Acorn TV, unfolds in six 90-minute episodes after Camille and her friend Sonia fail to return home after attending a party in town. Pretty soon, the search for the two girls exposes family secrets and love triangles and the seamy underbelly of drugs and sexual predators in the town. The attraction of this series lies not only in its plot, but in the scenic backdrop and the total gorgeousness of the two lead actors, Vanessa Incontrada as Nora and Giuseppe Zeno as the police investigator, Giovanni . Of course, these two beautiful characters become entangled in their own romantic drama as the search progresses to its gripping conclusion.
Safe
Safe, is a six-part Netflix series created by bestselling author Harlan Coben. It starts with the discovery of a body floating in a swimming pool. The body is that of a young male guest who was at a party thrown by a teenager while her parents are away for the weekend. It soon turns out that the dead boy’s teenage girlfriend, Jenny, is missing and also feared dead. The sixteen year old, is the daughter of Tom (Michael C. Hall), a pediatric surgeon and widowed father. The murder and disappearance is investigated by Tom’s girlfriend and neighbor, Detective Sophie Mason who has her own secrets to protect.
The really interesting thing (for me, anyway) about this series is that it’s set in a gated community somewhere close to London.
What?!
When I left England for the States in 1980, gated communities were unheard of in the U.K. Apparently not anymore. This, in effect turns the mystery into something of a “cozy” set in a closed community where everyone knows everyone else — but not their carefully-hidden secrets which are exposed one by one as the mystery unfolds.
Because it’s a Coben creation, every one of the six episodes ends on the type of cliffhanger that makes this a super binge-watching experience.