Dept Q on Netflix: Scottish gothic crime series is twisty, smart and will keep you guessing

Every location-specific dark crime genre needs a suffix-plus-noir. Scandi noir, Nordic noir, Tassie noir, outback noir, even Florida noir.

Tartan noir has a nice ring to it but the tradition of Gothic literature runs deep in Scotland, so it goes back further than any kind of trendy, marketing-friendly label.

Dept. Q doesn’t even need those moody moors with their vast, ghostly landscapes because the city of Edinburgh already feels haunted.

If you’ve ever walked the Royal Mile or stared up at Edinburgh old town’s architecture, so many of the buildings date back to Medieval times, the imposing sandstone darkened by centuries of living, you know what we mean.

Then the unrelenting wind blows right past you but, more likely, through you, and you get the literal and metaphorical chills. So, yeah, who needs the moors?

Dept. Q has been adapted from a series of Danish crime fiction novels, and was made into movies in its homeland, so it has a Scandi noir origin but the nine-episode series feels distinctly Scottish.

Even though, it must be conceded, it’s led by English actor Matthew Goode and was developed by an American TV writer, Scott Frank, and an Englishwoman from the southern counties, Chandni Lakhani.

But the production has made excellent use of its location and an ensemble cast that mostly draws from the north of the border talent pool, including Kelly Macdonald, Chloe Pirrie, Mark Bonnar, Leah Byrne, Jamie Sives, Kate Dickie and Shirley Henderson.

At the risk of sounding patronising, the absolutely wonderful thing about a Scottish murder mystery is listening to Scots say “muur-dah” over and over again.

The vibes are creepy and gritty, the characters are gruff and direct, the puzzle is properly intriguing, and the English are frequently mocked.

Dept. Q is centred on Carl Morck (Goode), a mess of a man and detective who has just returned to work after being shot on duty. That incident killed a junior officer and left his partner, James (Sives), paralysed from the waist down. No arrests have been made and the investigation has stalled.

It would be generous to say Carl’s tetchy presence is problematic for his boss Moira (Dickie), and she needs to put him somewhere where he can do the least damage to himself and the cops.

That’s where Department Q comes in, a newly established and barely resourced unit to investigate cold cases for the sake of publicity and goodwill. How much trouble could he get into among boxes of old files in the tiled basement room which used to house the showers and toilets?

A lot, apparently.

With help from former Syrian cop Akram (Alexej Manvelov), a polite and efficient political refugee who knows exactly where all the pressure points are on someone’s body, undervalued junior cop Rose (Byrne) and James, still laid up in hospital, the team starts to investigate the case of Merritt Lingard (Pirrie), a prosecutor who disappeared off a ferry four years earlier.

The case will run for the entirely of the season, weaving in and out of tightly plotted story points, involving Merritt’s old cases, her family’s history on an offshore island, and the fractured and cold relationships she had with the people in her life.

There’s also the mystery of who shot Carl, James and the junior cop, as well as the various problems in Carl’s personal life, including his strained relationship with his stepson, the tete-a-tete with his department-mandated therapist (Macdonald) and his propensity to blow his fuse when there are camera phones around.

Carl was already a volatile personality (he’s not one for small talk or ingratiating himself with his colleagues) but the shooting made it worse by throwing in a dollop of PTSD into the mixing bowl.

The role is a departure for Goode, whose best-known performances are as polished gentlemen in the likes of Downton Abbey, The Good Wife, Brideshead Revisited, The Crown and even as co-host of The Wine Show with Matthew Rhys.

It’s a pleasant surprise to see him as the grumpy Carl with a rough temper to match his grizzly beard, and he pulls it off, especially that facial accoutrement.

Dept. Q is moreish and smart, and it keeps up the level of suspense all the way to the end, with a twisty mystery that at times pushes the boundaries of incredulity but manages to just stay on the right side of suspend-your-disbelief.

The ending ties most things up with a neat bow so if this is all there is, it would be satisfying, but considering it’s already high on Netflix’s most-watched charts, don’t be surprised if there will be another case to solve.

Dept. Q is streaming on Netflix