Tony (Anjan Dutt), a yesteryear filmstar, is celebrating his 66th birthday in his trademark style, booze, good food and a handpicked list of invitees, all if whom he knows and has been interacting with. There police top brass, a doctor (his young lover too), a sports teacher who runs a local orphanage, a socialite and media influencer, a filmmaker and an author (who is also his close friend. The venue is his family bungalow in Darjeeling where he has lived all his life. He allows one additional person he doesn't know, a newspaper reporter Amitava (Arjun Chakraborty), as he has been invited by the socialite Sheela (Anindita Bose). The party is in full swing when Tony suffers a heart attack and breathes his last.
Whilst everyone else is convinced that it was a natural death, and quite convinced because of Tony's Bohemian lifestyle and reputation, Amitava smells something fishy and has reasons to believe that there's foul play involved, also looking for a scoop for his newspaper to cover a celebrity death. The more he starts digging, the more clues he starts gathering that reinforce his belief that it was a murder. But who among the guests could it have been, as everyone knew Tony well, loved him and what could be the motive?
"Murder in the Hills" is a stylish, well executed, sleek and suspenseful crime drama with fantastic cinematography, an excellent backdrop of the hill city Darjeeling and some great music by Neel Dutt. Although the drama gets a bit repetitive and slack at times over the 8 episodes, and you often wonder why the protagonist Amitava is finding clues as if they were planted there for him, most of your questions are answered in the climax and it makes for an exciting finish. It's a little over the top and some of the characters like Neema (Sandipta Sen) tend to get on the nerves with a strange English accent and loud expressions, the murder mystery makes for a good, back to back watch.
