Jack Irish: Season 1

The Australian mystery series Jack Irish, based on the novels of Peter Temple and starring Guy Pearce as a former lawyer who is content to scrape by as a low-rent debt collector and part time private investigator, began as a series of feature-length telefilms. This first official season is essentially a six-part miniseries in which Jack searches for the missing mistress of a televangelist in a shady and secretive religious sect (with shades of Scientology in their set-up). Suddenly, Jack's bank account is frozen, he's attacked by thugs in a dark alley, and when he doesn't back off he winds up facing more extreme measures. Meanwhile, Linda Hillier (Marta Dusseldorp)—an ambitious journalist, and Jack's sort-of girlfriend (he's not much for commitment)—leaves Melbourne to work in Manila, where she uncovers a deadly conspiracy connected to a village massacre in the lawless countryside. The intersecting stories in Australia and the Philippines give this mystery—the first not based on one of Temple's novels—a bigger scope than previous Jack Irish productions. Pearce is likable and low-key as Jack, another anti-hero in a long line of damaged detectives, and Dusseldorp's Linda receives almost as much focus as she tracks her story into the heart of the militia-controlled countryside. The mix of shaggy character humor, scruffiness of the Melbourne underworld, and brutality of international crime conspiracies makes for a memorable and compelling series. Compiling all six episodes from 2015, extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette, and a photo gallery. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)