ROTTEN TO THE CAW

In the new Paramount+ whodunit ‘The Crow Girl’, excellent performances illuminate a series that’s not afraid to get a lot darker than your average streaming thriller

-  Ed Power

Guns N’ Roses and Nordic noir are not generally mentioned in the same breath, but they are two of the more intriguing ingredients that have gone into new Paramount+ thriller The Crow Girl. The series is set in Bristol, but it’s based on a bestseller by Hakan Axlander Sundqvist and Jerker Eriksson about a serial killer in Stockholm. The book is a cult hit, its fans including none other than GNR rock god and tiny-top-hat advocate Slash, who contributes to the soundtrack of the smallscreen adaptation.

Fret not. This gripping tale of gruesome killings, a paedophile ring and the exploitation of asylum seekers does not kick off with the riffs to “Paradise City”. It instead imports a satisfying Scandi chill to the West Country, as it juggles a torrid sexual abuse storyline with a flinty performance by Eve Myles as a sardonic copper investigating the apparently ritualised deaths of a number of young men.