Cardinal
B OX S E T
Low-key is probably the best way of describing Billy Campbell’s understated performance as detective John Cardinal in this atmospheric Canadian police drama.
Rarely in the crime genre has there been a detective who is about as far away from ‘maverick’ as it is possible to be. Though he could be labelled ‘troubled’,
Cardinal has no obvious vices – there isn’t a drug or alcohol problem lurking in the background – and he had a happy marriage which sadly ended with his wife’s premature death. He is grieving and introverted, not sleeping particularly well, but still able to do his job.
In the latest series – which recently finished its run on BBC Two but is still available on iPlayer, along with the previous three series – Cardinal and his partner detective Lise Delorme (Karine Vanasse) are on the trail of a serial killer. It soon becomes apparent that the murders are a form of revenge – the killer selects loved ones of those he seeks to punish – and Cardinal and his team begin to dig into historical crimes for clues.
The vast frozen wastes of the wintry Canadian landscape really come into their own here as the victims are kidnapped, transported by snowmobile to remote sites and left to die slowly of exposure. The tentative will-they-won’tthey romantic relationship between Delorme and Cardinal is foregrounded in this series and adds warmth to a chilling – and sometimes gruesome – tale.