There are those who, because of their position in society, or through personal arrogance, believe they will always be above suspicion. These are the types of people who think they can get away with murder and usually attempt to do so. Haven't you ever noticed how many serial killers are the ones nobody ever suspects of being able to commit horrendous crimes? Of course when it comes to those who believe their position in society allows them to do whatever they want, that's a different story, but the results are usually the same thing; people end up dead and the police are left trying to puzzle out who was responsible.
A new police procedural from British television released on DVD by Acorn Media, appropriately called Above Suspicion deals with just these types of crimes. What is really good about this series is its focus on the nuts and bolts of police work. The hard slog and drudgery the police have go through to find their suspect.
Like most of these shows from Britain, each series contains only two cases, but in this instance each case is three episodes long. Disc one contains the pilot, simply called "Above Suspicion" while disc two's investigation is called "The Red Dahlia". Both cases involve fairly gruesome murders, which display both a horrifying disregard for human life and a very deliberate brutality. In both cases you feel sorry for any police who have to work on them. Not only for what they are exposed to, but, when they do catch the person, having to even be in the same room as somebody who could do these types of things.
That's especially true for the first episode of the series as the lead character is a pretty young officer just starting out on her career, Detective Constable (DC) Anna Travis (Kelly Reilly). Due to illness in his squad she finds herself temporarily assigned to Detective Chief Inspector (DCI) Langton's (Ciaran Hinds) murder team. On her first day working with him she's told to meet him at a crime scene where a body of a young women has been found. Unfortunately for her the body has been on location for quite a while and is a maggot strewn mess. Throwing up at a crime scene is not the best way of impressing your new superior officer and neither is feinting during the postmortem autopsy, both of which DC Travis manages to do on her first day.
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