If you love a juicy murder mystery and fancy looking at some fabulous French scenery, then Netflix's new thriller series Under a Dark Sun is perfect for you.
I'm hooked on every twist and turn as we follow Alba (Ava Baya), a young mother who flees her controlling father to start a new life with her young son Leo.
With little money, she’s delighted when she gets a mysterious text offering her a job interview picking flowers at a vast estate.
But when she arrives, the boss, Arnaud, says he didn't ask her to come for an interview. He does, though, give her the job, but then asks when she's going to stop pretending about why she’s really here and says she should meet him first thing the next morning!
However, when Alba shows up for their appointment, she finds him in a pool of blood, dying. He's been murdered, and she's now the chief suspect!
She then faces a battle of wits against Arnaud's manipulative widow Beatrice (played by two-time Oscar nominee Isabelle Adjani), who's hellbent on making sure Alba is behind bars. Did Beatrice kill her husband? Or was it another member of her poisonous family, including her hideous son Mathieu? And why on earth is Beatrice's granddaughter Manon so keen to help Alba? And what about Alba? Can we really trust her?
It’s a great set up and Alba is very much at the heart of the show, trying to solve who killed Arnaud. The cops are always lurking in the background, but it seems to be up to Alba to find the truth about this bizarre family.
What I love about Under a Dark Sun is that you're really unsure where it will go next. There are a couple of moments when I gasped in surprise as something shocking happened. I even rewound one episode to double-check that something really did happen!
It reminds me a little of Netflix's recent Nordic noir hit The Glass Dome, with a female central character who very much feels alone in the world. It also shares the same sense of claustrophobia. But Under a Dark Sun has far more humor, with Isabelle Adjani getting the majority of the best lines as caustic Béatrice.
The whole six-part series also looks great, having been shot on the French Riviera. So, give it a whirl and you won't be disappointed.
Under a Dark Sun is on Netflix now. See our best shows on Netflix guide for more recommendations.
