Streaming series review - Murderous Memories

Murderous Memories *** (out of 5) French TV provides another solid, character-driven crime series in the form of three movies in which the same cast solves new cases. Intriguingly, the star detective is played by Gaelle Bona, who was simultaneously playing a different lead detective in the relatively light series, Mongeville. She’s either very well connected, or France has a hard time finding actresses who aren’t on one of the country’s frequent strikes. Though the tone of this one is more serious, Bona is equally effective here.

In this incarnation, she’s married with a couple of kids. Her husband is a cellist who seems nice, but is growing more resentful of how much time her job demands, sticking him with more of the childcare than he wants to handle. In the first of these 90-minute tales, a skeleton turns up at Verdun’s vast memorial park that is too recently deceased to have been among the 20,000 casualties from that epic WW I struggle. It’s found near the freshly-murdered body of the honorary mayor of that cemetery/shrine. Are the two connected? Well, of course they must be, and a well-written plot keeps the suspense going to a satisfying conclusion. Along the way, Bona’s marriage is declining, and the forensic archeologist (David Kammenos) assisting in her efforts is a charming fellow who seems smitten, despite her complete lack of interest. In fact, she barely notices anything about him apart from their sleuthing. His role in identifying whodunnit is comparable to Emily Deschanel’s in our long-running Bones series, though he’s clearly the second banana in this detecting duo.

Each of the three mysteries pairs the two for different cases in different places. The second rotates around the discovery of a Nazi soldier clad in an SS uniform mummified in a building that’s being torn down. The third centers on a similar find in an abandoned steel mill. Those remains turn out to be from labor turmoil in the 1980s, when the town’s major employer was part of a nationwide shutdown of that industry due to global economic factors.

All three (respectively titled Les Brumes, Les Murs and Les Ondes du Souvenir) are fine as stand-alones, but better appreciated in sequence, due to evolving relationships among the leads. Since each honors significant events and eras in France’s history, there’s a gravitas in the mix elevating the package somewhat above most contemporary fare. When education meshes this gracefully with entertainment, that makes for a nice bonus.

(Murderous Memories, in French with subtitles, streams on MHzChoice as of 4/25/23)