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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 10, No. 39 |
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EXECUTION" Part One, Sunday, Nov. 1, Part Two, Sunday, Nov. 8, both at 9 PM on PBS's MASTERPIECE CONTEMPORARY (see your local tv guide for exact time, dates and stations in your television market) |
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Val McDermid's masterwork
becomes riveting television
of TheColumnists.com
When I first read Val McDermid's "A Place for Execution" in 2000, I knew she had just elbowed her way into the small group of the United Kingdom's very best mystery writers with a work of fiction that would stand the test of time--and surely become an equally absorbing movie as soon as somebody got around to filming it.
Well, that time finally has come. McDermid's literary masterwork has been beautifully filmed as a two-part movie that premieres Sunday, Nov. 1 at 9 PM, on PBS' Masterpiece Contemporary and concludes the following Sunday at 9. (Consult your local TV guide for exact time, date and stations in your area.)
For those mystery fans who know Val McDermid's work mainly from the television versions of her "Wire in the Blood" series of novels about Dr. Tony Hill, "A Place of Execution" will come as a vivid reminder that this inventive author is not limited to the confines of "series detective" yarns, but can also deeply engross you in a story that engages important issues with characters that seem as if they just stepped out of authentic police reports on a real criminal case.
Her story is about the making of a documentary film that raises questions about a rather sensational murder case that dates back more than 40 years. As writer-filmmaker Catherine Heathcote (Juliet Stevenson) digs ever deeper into the case of missing teenager Allison Carter, whose body was never found, she begins to shake the girl's isolated northern England village of Scardale and virtually all its inhabitants. Most of all her focus is on aged police detective George Bennett, who solved the case in his youth and made his reputation with it.
When Bennett suddenly withdraws his cooperation with Heathcote's TV project, telling her "mistake were made" in the original investigation, she becomes more than ever determined to find out what really happened to 13-year-old Allison and who really was to blame.
McDermid's novel reads like an intensive probe into a genuine murder case, much like Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." The closer we get to learning the truth about the murder, the more we understand that the truth has been purposely hidden for decades by a number of people, possibly even by the haunted detective himself.
The movie version has made one major change in the original storyline: Catherine Heathcote was writing a book about the case in McDermid's first vision of the story, but is now doing a TV documentary. The change is not upsetting and seems to work quite well.
The teleplay by Patrick Harbinson proceeds on parallel lines--showing us the events that originally took place in 1963 while also following Catherine as she gathers information for her contemporary film. Lee Ingleby is superb as the young detective Bennett, a nerdy chap who soon becomes obsessed with discovering everything he can about the pretty missing girl, and Philip Jackson is marvelous as the much older Bennett, whose life starts to come apart with each new revelation Catherine uncovers.
Juliet Stevenson is one of England's best-loved performers and she's ideal for the role of Catherine, whose own link to the old case becomes more and more apparent as she digs deeper, finally reaching a point that shocks her to the core.
Also excellent is Greg Wise, who plays the much-disliked Philip Hawkin, Allison's stepfather.
"A Place of Execution" is a much-layered story that constantly rewards you with surprises and stunning disclosures, all handled with credibility. At the core of it is the notion that legal justice often isn't the kind of justice people really want and there may be times when people reach out for something more satisfying, regardless of the consequences. McDermid develops her story shrewdly from the character of the people she's put in this mysterious landscape, which helps elevate her yarn to the level of literature.
This is an ideal mystery drama that's a real brain-teaser much of the time. If you relish mysteries that keep you guessing all the way, "A Place of Execution" is going to be your special treat this fall.
©2009 by Ron Miller. The illustration is courtesy of PBS. This column first posted Oct. 26, 2009.
| To read Ron Miller's original 2000 interview with author Val McDermid on "A Place of Execution," click here: Val McDermid |
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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