Toronto ‘skeletons’ exposed

A co-creator of the new TORONTO CBC-TV crime drama Shoot the Messenger insists it’s not a story about Rob Ford. But Sudz Sutherland does admit he was inspired by the saga of the late former Toronto mayor as he helped craft the series, which stars Elyse Levesque as a newspaper reporter caught up in a web of gangs, murder, sex, drugs and politics in Toronto.

“It’s not the Rob Ford story but … we were all inspired by that and I thought that unmasked a lot of what was going on behind the scenes of the city,” said Sutherland.

“We thought, ‘Hmm, that’s really interesting,’ so we wanted to actually explore these relationships between people who are super rich and political people with political power and people who are business leaders but have these skeletons in their closet.”

Debuting Monday, the serialized show follows Levesque’s character Daisy as she witnesses and then investigates the murder of a young Somali man. Lyriq Bent plays the lead homicide detective, who is also Daisy’s secret lover.

“A huge influence for me was Claire Danes of Homeland. That was a big inspiration for finding this person,” said Levesque. “But other than that, I didn’t base it on any actual living human being.”

Co-stars include Alex Kingston as Daisy’s editor, Lucas Bryant as her co-worker, Hannah Anderson as her sister and Ari Cohen as the attorney general. Guest stars include Barenaked Ladies lead singer Ed Robertson and former NBA stars Jamaal Magloire and Rick Fox.