Anne Warburton

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I started reading this book by mistake on my Kindle, thinking it was one of Michelle de Kretser's titles that I also have. Even though the lack of naming is obviously deliberate, I couldn't help trying to place the civil war and the characters and I assumed it must be the Sri Lankan one. But the language and the cultural references didn't fit that interpretation. I decided to google for more information about 2/5 of the way through, and having read a review which details Anna Burns' own life story I now realise it's set in Northern Ireland. Thank God I did that. I'm now enjoying it much more, which does rather make me wonder what the literary point is of not naming people, places, countries or organisations. But I suppose it could be said that stripping the story of actual politics allows a universalist, humanist interpretation of what it's like to live through civil war.

High production values and some breathtaking cinematography don't save this 8-part series from being a dramatic and narrative mess. It’s part police procedural and part ghost story with an overall mood of Tasmanian Gothic, but there are just too many threads and sub-plots and themes. They should have dropped the supernatural elements altogether and stuck with the murder investigation storylines, I reckon. Heaven knows there’s enough to be going on with without the woo-woo stuff: two cops with a shared past, one of them a single mother with a drinking problem and a troubled teenage daughter, the other a handsome brooding detective who’s fled Tasmania to escape youthful trauma, a body wrapped in barbed wire, a possible link to an earlier murder which traumatized the cop, a corrupt mayoral candidate in cahoots with greedy land developers, two more troubled teenagers in peril, one of whom might even be a killer…. It would still have looked and sounded suitably gothic with that soundtrack of howling winds and portentous music and all those moody shots of scudding clouds and swirling mists encircling the wintry peak of Mt Wellington. As a Tasmanian I must say it was gratifying to see Hobart portrayed thus: stylish modernity sitting comfortably atop an elegant colonial heritage, the restless Derwent River endlessly lapping at the grand pillars of the Tasman Bridge and none of your drab postwar suburbia to be seen. But the supernatural stuff is an over-egged pudding. The crude fetishes hanging about everywhere borrow from The Blair Witch Project, and the cult bible suggests a Dan Brown-ish exploitation of the villain du jour, Christianity. And what’s that business about the 'bloodline' to which Grace (played by NZ actress Rena Owen) keeps referring? It seems to have something to do with the hanged convict girl, a brief sub-plot that only features in one episode. The final episode supposedly explains it all but fails to do so. Are all those people who end up round the fire with broom-straw masks meant to be descendants of her unhanged friend? The ending is so chaotic and confusing I defy anyone to try to summarise it. Ewen Leslie and Emma Booth are good in the lead roles, but while I loved Aaron Pederson in Jack Irish and the first Mystery Road, he is disappointingly wooden here as the boss of a surprisingly diverse (for Hobart) cop shop. I wouldn’t quibble about that, but I will quibble about this: if spooky Grace is the descendant of wronged Scottish convicts who’ve been maintaining the rage in Van Diemen’s Land since 1851, how does she come by her Maori appearance and Kiwi accent?

Normally when the ABC runs trailers over and over again I get annoyed and hostile. I've noticed that quite often the ABC will over-promote bad TV like Get Krackin (sorry, Katering Kates - nothing personal) and not promote brilliant stuff like Press (which I discovered by reading about it in the print media). But I think I might have to watch this show because that baby with the frowny face is so funny and cute. I smile and beam like an idiot every time the trailer comes on.