TV Review: ‘Kostas,’ streaming, Acorn

NEW YORK (OSV News) – As winter weather arrives across North America, viewers may appreciate the chance to watch a program set in sunny Mediterranean climes. The four-episode first season of the detective series “Kostas,” currently streaming on Acorn TV, fits the bill.

The Italian production is based on the work of Istanbul-born Greek crime writer Petros Markaris. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Markaris’ Inspector Costas Haritos Mysteries have chronicled the career of the titular Athens-based sleuth, a police official whose outstanding personality traits — however one chooses to transliterate his name — are determination and crankiness.

Ambitiously, each roughly hour-long installment of the show seeks to cover a plot that would be adequate for a feature-length film. The first, “Deadline in Athens,” shares both the title and storyline of Markaris’ initial novel, though its events are updated to 2009.

Kostas Charitos (Stefano Fresi), we learn, is the heir to a complex psychological and emotional legacy. His father, who also worked on the police force, was a hardened backer of the military junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Although Kostas resents the fact that dad collaborated with the regime, there’s also no denying that his gift for interrogating suspects is an inherited one. It’s a talent that comes in handy as Kostas investigates the murder of an Albanian couple.

His questioning of a suspect in the case elicits a confession so quickly and easily that he’s soon convinced there must be more to the story. Challenged by a journalist who, in line with her own agenda, hints at issues related to human trafficking, Kostas uncovers a plot with international tentacles that circle back to local matters in Athens.

Another mystery arises when an earthquake hits the Aegean island where Kostas is vacationing with his wife, Adriana (Francesca Inaudi), his daughter, Katerina (Blu Yoshimi), and Katerina’s boyfriend, Panos (Daniele La Leggia). The tremor unearths an unidentified corpse.

This plot point is only touched on in the first episode, however, thus promising an overarching link to future chapters.

Surrounded by underlings who walk on eggshells due to his crotchety nature, Kostas deftly navigates the primary investigation. Zeroing in on a powerful businessman with an empire backed by former Czech communists, Kostas confronts residues of corruption that continue to plague Greece long after the restoration of its democracy.

The connection between global financial crime and wrongdoing of a more localized nature is one of Markaris’ characteristic concerns. Highlighting the tie between the two allows him to offer a subtle commentary on — and critique of — Greek society.

As Markaris observed in a 2011 interview with NPR’s Sylvia Poggioli, “If you want to write today a social or political novel, you have to turn to the crime novel.”

Markaris also delves into linguistic subtleties in his books, and this theme is explored on the small screen as well. Kostas, a collector of dictionaries, makes use of them to study the precise meaning of such terms as “pacificazione” (pacification), “alludere” (allude), and “ereditia” (inheritance), all of which crop up in his investigation.

While tales of murder are not, by their nature, appropriate for kids, mature TV fans will find that “Kostas” is restrained in its depiction of violence. They’ll also appreciate the way the series provides insights into its flawed characters, the positive and negative aspects of life in its home city and the ongoing shadow cast by a tyranny more than five decades after its overthrow.

In Italian. English subtitles.

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