There are but a few authors who have their own within the modern television landscape. Agatha Christie, of course, gets a new adaptation every Christmas. There’s also David Nicholls and Kate Atkinson, or any number of thriller writers, from Gillian Flynn to the indefatigable Harlan Coben.
But none have made quite the impression, in recent years, of , whose books have spawned a number of blockbuster sagas, the latest of which, , turns up this week on BBC One. Joy Delaney ( ) has gone missing. She has recently retired from the tennis academy she ran with her volatile husband Stan ( ), and her disappearance sparks the concern of her children: anxious Amy ( ), macho Troy (Jake Lacy), disenchanted Logan (Conor Merrigan Turner), and unreliable Brooke (Essie Randles).
Has somebody murdered their mother? And is that “somebody” their father, given that Joy may have been seeking a divorce? Or is Joy’s vanishing somehow linked to the sudden appearance, many months earlier, of a mysterious young woman, Savannah (Georgia Flood), who becomes a cuckoo in the Delaney nest? If you know Moriarty’s work, you’ll know where this is going. Twists and turns, misdirection and obfuscation, not to mention lashings of family drama. This is the third big-budget adaptation of Moriarty’s work, beginning with 2017’s , and followed up by .
Though they are unified by A-list talent and high production values, the creative ambitions have been progressively stifled. Where was shot with a vaguely.