Though Dublin normally isn’t thought of as the location of record for a crime drama, a new series, “The Dublin Murders,” uses such a place to add a wrinkle to a thoroughly wrinkled tale.
When a young girl is found dead on an altar — part of an archeological dig in a wooded area of Dublin — it stirs local memories of an decades-old mystery of two missing children. Inspector Rob Reilly (Killian Scott) and his professional partner Cassie Maddox (Sarah Greene), are tagged to solve the crime but the investigators are part of the mystery in more ways than one.
Decades earlier, two boys disappear and a third comes of out the woods with no memory of what happened. The current crime recalls facts associated with the earlier incident. Irish-American author Tana French spun the stories, the Dublin Murder Squad books, which are the basis of this series. Produced by Euston Films, a part of the Fremantle Media group, the eight-episode first season debuts on RTÉ One and BBC One in late 2019. The first season — adapting her first two tomes, “In the Woods” and “The Likeness,” is already getting a huge buzz not just from her literary fan base but from the TV cognoscenti as well.
Recently, Starz held a New York premiere with executive producer Naomi Spanos, creator Sarah Phelps and lead Killian Scott, joining the audience afterwards. Having only aired the first episode, many questions were in mind though not all were answerable at the time.
The pressure was on Scott to enlighten but not reveal too much. Born Cillian Murphy on July 6th, 1985, he had studied English and Philosophy at University College Dublin before moving to London to train at the Drama Centre. He has already made his mark as Tommy in the RTÉ One series “Love/Hate.” But the series will do much more to make his face recognizable as this character. This lanky Dubliner explained what drew him to the series and drew the producers to him. “It was a funny thing because Sarah and I were cast separately. We never did a chemistry reading or anything to bring us together and see how we get on. I was in Los Angeles and I got the script. It was a quick turnaround, I didn’t really have the time to read through the first couple of episodes, so I just looked at the pages that they wanted to audition.
He added, “I immediately had this instinct of understanding and I just felt that I understood where the guy was coming from. I was really attracted to the idea that Ron is the guy that basically, very effectively, kept a particular type of manner in order to excel in his chosen occupation. It is a very difficult thing to do to to become a successful and talented murder detective as he is at his age. And to be English in Dublin as well, which is a complicated situation, particularly in that kind of role of authority.”
For writer/series creator Sarah Phelps, who deconstructed French’s books and transformed them into the episodes, explained that, “because the [books] are such strong immersive worlds…, ‘Into the Woods’ gets you around the throat and ‘The Likeness’ kind of digs a finger into the corner of your brain. I know that sounds really horrible, but it really is an intensely pleasurable reading experience even though I’ve made it sound horrendous. I kept thinking, ‘I don’t want to do Rob’s story and then drop it and then pick it up with Cassie’s, I’m going to plait them together. So, the intense relationship between these two detectives, which is based on something that they understand about each other, is so deep and strange. Everything impacts upon each other.”
Maybe the key to the draw in French’s stories, is that she brings a unique sense of place to her work. Though born in Burlington, Vermont on May 10th, 1973, she’s lived in numerous countries as a child such as Ireland, Italy, the U.S., and Malawi. Her father was an economist working in the developing world, so the family experienced many cultures.
French attended Trinity College, Dublin, trained in acting and ultimately settled in Ireland where she has has lived since 1990. Married with two daughters, she retained dual citizenship — U.S.A. and Italy. In her 30s, a passion for writing was rekindled and in the months-long lulls between castings, she began her debut novel. Published in 2007, “In the Woods” garnered acclaim and rave reviews. Publishers Weekly gushed, “Ryan and Maddox are empathetic and flawed heroes, whose partnership and friendship elevate the narrative beyond a gory tale of murdered children and repressed childhood trauma.”
In what became the Dublin Murder Squad series,
her second novel, The Likeness (2008), shifts to the story of the debut’s co-lead, Cassie Maddox. Kirkus praised its mix of “police procedures, psychological thrills and gothic romance beautifully woven into one stunning story”. Further novels have taken other members of the Murder Squad as lead characters.
In citing the power of French’s books to inspire the creation of this series, Phelps opined, “Tana is also very brave about telling stories of a nation. They are psychological and detective thriller, but they are also about the years of a tiger economy, the boom, and then the button, and a huge really damaging recession and then the slow, long climb out to recovery. And at the same time she really taps down to the older stories we tell ourselves. The ancient, ancient folktales and myths.
“When I was reading, I kept thinking that these are modern retellings of really old tales. Into the Woods is about the children that go under the hill and The Likeness is about doppelgangers. The fact that these were Irish tales were really important to me. I’m sure you all have noticed that over in Britain we seem to be having a sort of Meth moment. As ever, Ireland has been used very much as a political football and a really important legislation that created peace is again being used as a political football. It felt to me that it was really important that this was a really crucial time to be telling stories about Ireland.”
Added seasoned producer Spanos, her engagement was driven simply by an appreciation of the books’ story-telling — and of the dramaturgy Phelps has employed in transforming them for the small screen. “I think that we all fell in love with the books because, we are all fans of crime, but also, the shift of the characterization in these novels, and the sense of place. It’s a tinge of modern gothic which Sarah has drawn out beautifully. For us, crime is crime, but it’s the secrets, it’s the lies, it’s the themes that are in every book of Tana’s that Sarah has bubbled right to the top.”