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(More customer reviews)"A Place of Execution," (2009), a new television series, is based upon the outstanding, award-winning book of the same name, by Val McDermid, a multiple prize-winning novelist who specializes in British mysteries/psychological thrillers/police procedurals, and is perhaps best-known today for her "Wire in the Blood," series, currently being filmed in the United Kingdom under that title. That series stars Robson Green, who has had a part in producing the TV series at hand, presumably for his employers at Britain's Independent Television stations (ITV). McDermid is considered a leading light in the writing school that has come to be known as tartan noir: and what's that when it's at home, you say? Penned by a Scot, (duh!), unusually dark, violent and bloody; and always lit - a bit--by that droll Scots sense of humor: its exemplars are McDermid, Ian Rankin, and Denise Mina. There is nothing in the least cosy about the village of Scardale, where McDermid has set her story; but some viewers may find themselves reminded of the plot ofAgatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, by that other even more internationally famed mystery-writing Scotswoman, Agatha Christie, who more or less invented the British crime novel,particularly the village cosy.
The series comes to us directly from its American debut on Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and is released directly by PBS. It is one disk, approximately 150 minutes long,with subtitles. It stars the acclaimed Juliet Stevenson (Bend It Like Beckham (Widescreen Edition)) as Catherine Heathcote, TV journalist, looking into a famous 45-year old case: the case that McDermid's source novel centers upon. That novel did also use a flashback and frame structure; and Heathcote, the female journo trying to explicate the case, though she was a print journalist in the book.
The case at the book's core opened in December, 1963, a freezing day in Scardale, isolated rural village in the White Peak, a place of forbidding limestone cliffs in the county Derbyshire, in the greater Manchester area, where the book's author previously worked as a journo, and now lives. Alison Carter, 13-year old extraordinarily beautiful daughter of recently rewed Ruth Hawkin, stepdaughter of Philip Hawkin, the village's new all-powerful squire, has gone out to walk the dog and disappeared. Detective Inspector George Bennett, just promoted and moved to the area, unluckily catches the case. Mind you, the mystery's wrap-up felt clumsy and tacked on, and perhaps showed the relative inexperience of author McDermid then.
In the new TV treatment, Heathcote, as in the earlier book, is making a true crime treatment of the old case, for TV this time. She gets the cooperation of the never-wed, now-retired George. However, he suddenly learns something that shocks him, withdraws from the program, and has a severe heart attack that may leave him brain-damaged.
So we've got Heathcote frantically driving all over the country, trying to figure out what's going on. And location photography is fine, particularly the shots standing in for Scardale. Acting is fine. But the filmmakers seemed to distrust the present-day pulling power of the old case, and so beefed up the contemporary material, so that the old case becomes mere backstory. The film has also eliminated several elements that I considered important to the underlying case; understandably, they must be given some creative leeway. But, in addition, Stevenson is known for her ability to play intense, and the script sure gives her intense. She is a "crap mother," with a difficult relationship with her daughter Sasha, played by Elizabeth Day; and her own novelist mother, played by Liz Moscrop. As the story she's working on disintegrates, she worries about her ability to make the segment, is harassed by her boss Keith (Danny Sapani), while her assistant Nicola (Zoe Telford) tries to steal the show. Meanwhile, she's getting good support from Greg Wise (The Moonstone),playing the easily disliked Philip Hawkin; Lee Ingleby (The Last Legion; George Gently: Series 1) as the young George Bennett, and the inimitable Philip Jackson (Chief Inspector Japp in "Agatha Christie's Poirot" series) as the older policeman. Tony Maudsley does well as the young Tommy Clough, cop on the beat; familiar-faced supporting player Dave Hill gives us an older Tommy, still full of beans. But did I care about Heathcote's relations with her mother and daughter, or her ability to get the segment on TV? No. I cared about the story that had been reduced to backstory, the original case. However,for those not familiar with the underlying novel, I imagine this TV treatment is suspenseful enough.
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