This four-episode debut season of a crime drama from French TV delivers a solid mystery in an exotic setting - French Guyana. We meet Chloe (Stephane Caillard), a police officer banished to this post in the remote jungle setting of Cayenne for some unspecified act of insubordination. On her first day, she's partnered with veteran detective Dialo (Adama Niane), and sent to the site of a gruesome murder. They find a catamaran adrift up river with the bodies of two white do-gooders who were distributing educational materials to isolated villages. She learns many locals resent such seemingly benevolent acts. They are descended from African slaves the French imported, and believe those efforts will cause their children to abandon their own language and culture.
Even so, the crime appears to have been committed as some kind of religious ritual. The husband and wife weren't just killed. They were mutilated and posed with other objects in an excessively bloody manner. They also learn the couple had a young son who is missing. Unraveling all of this is fills the rest of the season. Chloe is smart and tough, but rather arrogant for one thrust into a new and different culture, showing little concern for local customs and key figures. The urgency of rescuing the child denies her the time than needed for a learning curve, even if she were less headstrong about the job. Dialo knows people in all segments of the populace. During their investigations, we learn that he's troubled by the possibility that this crime is part of a long pattern in the area involving child abductions for arcane purposes.
Four episodes is just about the right length for getting to know these characters, understanding their specific environs, and remaining engaged in this suspenseful plot. The story unfolds with a fair amount of action, and considerable explanation of how present attitudes and beliefs were shaped by the former colony's history. We learn the meaning and significance of Iskander as part of that. And even though Chloe initially seems like a bit of a jerk, we wind up thinking whatever she did to be sent there was probably a justifiable response to someone's abuse of authority.
The season is self-contained. No annoying cliff-hangers while waiting for Season 2.
