Marlon James doesn’t just tell stories; he creates entire worlds. The professor and Booker prize-winning author’s look at the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in 1976 Jamaica, A Brief History of Seven Killings, took in everything from the crack wars of New York City to the political schisms of Cuba. Black Leopard, Red Wolf – the opening volume of his prehistoric African fantasy series, which is being adapted for the screen by Michael B Jordan – creates a landscape that feels like Conan the Barbarian viewed through the prism of ancient African mysticism. His work always depicts complex ecosystems operating on cursed topographies.
Now, he has turned his talents to a new genre: mystery. Get Millie Black (Wednesday 5 March, 9pm, Channel 4), his first foray into television, is a detective tale in which the titular police officer tracks down a missing schoolgirl. On the surface it’s a grisly, witty thriller – but it’s also so much more. Millie (Tamara Lawrance) returns to Jamaica after years living in London, only to discover that the dehumanisation and exploitation of Black bodies didn’t end with the slave trade; it just evolved. The more she investigates young Janet’s (Shernet Swearine) disappearance, the more she realises it is only the tip of a corrupt iceberg that reaches across race, class and international borders. Her investigation ends up catching the attention of ambitious Scotland Yard Supt Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie), whose interference in the case becomes another albatross round Millie’s neck. It’s a transfixing testimony to how colonialism still breeds violence on both sides of the Atlantic, an elegantly told tale that walks the tightrope between pulpy action and unflinching intergenerational trauma.
It’s also full of painful emotional truths. We find out that Millie’s Kingston childhood with her abusive mother and beloved younger brother, Orville, ended when she was sent to live in UK with family after defending her brother from her mother’s violence – and then being told by phone that her brother was dead. Her return is prompted by discovering years later, when her mother dies, that she was lied to and that Orville is now Hibiscus (Chyna McQueen), a trans sex worker still reeling from the trauma of her childhood and unable to fully forgive Millie for leaving. A year into moving from Scotland Yard to Jamaica’s police force, we see Millie desperately trying to help her sister, who has frequent brutal run-ins with the police and local transphobes. This is a world packed with all the complexities of life, where a morning can be spent confronting the family secrets that destroyed your sense of self and the evening having a sexy rendezvous.
Each episode is narrated by a different character, making this a drama about far more than one person or one island. We start with Millie herself as narrator, before passing the baton to Hibiscus, Holborn, Janet and, finally, Millie’s closeted work partner Curtis (Greshwyn Eustache Jr). While Millie’s words speak directly to the audience, the other characters address her, seeing her fate and their own as intertwined. The violence and cruelty around them also reaches back through the island’s painful history: as Millie puts it, in this place, if you “pick something ugly, bigoted, hateful, shameful, violent, you see a shadow reaching back 400 years”.
While each of our five narrators excels as performers, transfixing even when stripped back to their disembodied voices, Tamara Lawrance as Millie is simply astonishing. She instantly joins the likes of Kate Winslet’s Mare Sheehan and Matthew McConaughey’s Rust Cohle as one of the modern era’s great TV detectives. Her righteous fury in the face of injustice, her cutting wit and ability to code-switch from English accent to a warm Jamaican lilt keep her consistently fascinating.
Over five hours of exemplary television, Millie Black suffers, triumphs, gains closure and makes terrible sacrifices. Even when the central mystery is solved, there is a sense that the trauma of events will linger long into the future. James’s latest creation is cruel, complicated and endlessly compelling – like all of his worlds.
