Crossmaheart

Adapted by Ulster novelist Colin Bateman from one of his own books (A Cycle of Violence), this features a smart-lipped journalist wisecracking his way through Northern Ireland's moral turmoil. The plot inches towards the thriller angle, but unfortunately someone forgot to bring the thrills. Rooney is the latest correspondent to be sent from Belfast to the border bandit country of Crossmaheart, where the previous incumbent in the post has gone missing. The plot adds dark sexual secrets to the usual Troubles paranoia, and features a guess-the-villain device so obvious it beggars belief. (Far inferior to 1998's other Bateman adaptation, Divorcing Jack.