TV Pick of the Week: Strike: Ink Black Heart - review by Yvette Huddleston

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger star as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott, partners in a now very successful central London detective agency. In fact, they have so much work that they are unable to take on any new clients so when distressed young woman Edie Ledwell (Mirren Mack) comes to ask for help, Robin has to send her away. But not before Edie has shared her story – she is the co-creator with her ex-boyfriend of a cult online cartoon The Ink Black Heart and explains that she has been experiencing terrible online harassment and bullying from a figure known as Anomie. She wants to find out the true identity of Anomie who has been making her life unbearable. Anomie has made a game based on Ink Black Heart which has many dedicated fans and followers who believe the lies that Anomie has been telling about Edie and who are also vilifying her. Edie is clearly desperate – she says as much – but Robin has to decline the work.

Then shortly afterwards Edie is murdered. Robin feels terrible about not having helped her and when the police come to speak to her about her encounter with Edie, she and Cormoran agree to help them with their enquiries. The pair are then formally hired by Edie’s agent, her uncle and the production company who were about to start filming the TV adaptation of The Ink Black Heart which Edie was going to be involved in as a scriptwriter. Edie’s murder took place at a Highgate Cemetery, which features in the storyline of the cartoon, where she was meeting her ex-boyfriend Josh (Jacob Abraham) who was also attacked and is now in hospital with life-changing injuries.

Josh is full of remorse – he behaved badly towards Edie – and wants to help Cormoran and Robin. There are plenty of suspects with motives to kill Edie including one of her former assistants, her fiancé, Josh’s agent, an actor who Edie fired for his alt right views and a couple of members of the artists’ collective that Edie and Josh were involved with.

As the intriguing narrative unfolds, the will-they-won’t-they romance between Cormoran and Robin continues to be teased out which provides an additional layer of investment from the viewer. Classy, very watchable stuff with great performances from the two leads.