Set in the town of Morecambe, this series opens with a woman meeting an unknown man in a bar; shortly afterwards the two have sex in a back alley. The next day it emerges that she is DS Lisa Armstrong. She is called out when two teenaged twins, a brother and sister, have gone missing. It turns out that their step-father was the man she encountered the night before. Rather than tell her seniors she works to hide this fact. As the series continues one body is found but the search for the other continues. Various suspects arise, both inside the children's family and amongst the wider community. Away from the case DS Armstrong's own children are getting involved with some potentially dangerous people.
I must say I found this a fairly mixed series; the central mystery concerning the missing children was fairly gripping but side story featuring our protagonist's children felt like extra drama for the sake of it which just distracted from the main story... it would have been better to have a shorter series rather than padding it with such melodrama. Similarly the one night stand between Armstrong and the step-father was rather too much; as was her behaviour afterwards. The fact that so few of the characters are likeable is also a bit of a problem as it made it hard to care about them. Thankfully the resolution was pretty good; wrapping up the two main storylines. The cast do a solid job bringing these characters to life at least. Overall this felt like an attempt to recreate the success of 'Broadchurch' which misses the elements that made that show (at least series one) such a winner. Overall a decent enough crime series that wasn't quite as good as I hoped.
I must say I found this a fairly mixed series; the central mystery concerning the missing children was fairly gripping but side story featuring our protagonist's children felt like extra drama for the sake of it which just distracted from the main story... it would have been better to have a shorter series rather than padding it with such melodrama. Similarly the one night stand between Armstrong and the step-father was rather too much; as was her behaviour afterwards. The fact that so few of the characters are likeable is also a bit of a problem as it made it hard to care about them. Thankfully the resolution was pretty good; wrapping up the two main storylines. The cast do a solid job bringing these characters to life at least. Overall this felt like an attempt to recreate the success of 'Broadchurch' which misses the elements that made that show (at least series one) such a winner. Overall a decent enough crime series that wasn't quite as good as I hoped.