Astrid: Murder in Paris, They Were Ten and Nordic Murders Series 3

 

The first episode of Astrid; Murder in Paris was the best police drama I have seen for a very long time. We are first introduced to senior detective Raphaelle Coste who engages the help of the autistic Astrid Nielsen to solve a murder. Astrid works in criminal records and when Raphaelle visits to look up some old cases, she finds Astrid. The two women, played by Lola Dewaere and Sara Mortensen, strike up a relationship that is often strained but ultimately fruitful. The emotion in this first feature length episode, relying as it does on it's portrayal of the brilliance but unsocial aspects of Astrid's character, is something else. 

The next episodes are not quite up to this starter, but number four was excellent., as was number five. Here the relationship between Astrid and pathologist Fournier is brilliant. There is so much intelligence in this series, this time we found out all about an ambigram. And I loved the exit song called "The Angel" by DeLaurentis.

Another French series They Were Ten is based on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Again, the first episode was terrific as our cast of unlikely villains are invited and then trapped on a tropical island. Obviously there are deaths in each episode, but the best parts are those that show their secrets in the back story of each character. So you know which is the next to be bumped off. What is good about these foreign series is that I don't know any of the cast, so they are the character they play. The inews says "they seemed to have walked straight out of the French language version of the board game Cluedo". The youngish, pretty heroine is Nina, goodness know what she has done in her past to warrant her comeuppance. Maybe we will know in the final episode.

I last posted about Nordic Murders on 23rd February 2021. We are now in Series 3, with former prosecutor and jailbird Karin Lossow still helping to solve crimes on the Baltic Sea Island of Usedom. We are in winter and boy is it cold. Detective Ellen Norgaard now has a child in tow, until that is, it get's abducted. It could only happen in Usedom.