Jack Irish: Bad Debts

A phone message from an ex-client – Danny McKillop (Simon Russell) – doesn't ring any bells for Jack and sends him searching through old case files and dredging up memories of the bleakest kind. Jack wasn't at the top of his game when he represented Danny ten years earlier – king hit by scotch on the rocks and the murder of his wife Isabel (Emma Booth) – Jack is amazed he managed to drag himself out of bed in the mornings let alone make it to court. Bottom line – Danny did five years for manslaughter and he might have been set up. So when Danny turns up dead, Jack feels like he has failed his ex-client twice over. Keen to set the ledger straight, Jack starts investigating Danny's death. With his ad-hoc, unorthodox, crumpled style he begins to peel back the layers that connects Danny's death to dodgy cops, drug dealers, a slimy priest and a blackmailing pornographer. The cold case turns warm when Jack meets Linda Hillier (Marta Dusseldorp), a smart, sexy investigative journalist who has a weakness for burnt-out, dishevelled, rumpled men.

Not surprisingly, representing dead clients isn't that lucrative. Jack supplements his income working for Harry Strang (Roy Billing), an old-school racing identity who has made an art out of pulling the wool over the eyes of unsuspecting bookies. Between Harry's stings, being implicated in a grotesque double murder, and mastering mortice and tenon joints under the disapproving gaze of German craftsman Charlie Taub (Vadim Glowna), Jack has more than enough to distract himself. Together Jack and Linda uncover tantalising links between Danny's hit-and-run victim and a $600 million property deal. Linda is keen to go to print with their story about shifty deals between high profile politicians and their developer mates when all hell breaks loose. The usually quiet streets of Fitzroy descend into Beirut as Jack and Linda make a desperate run for the countryside. Hidden in a rambling holiday shack is the explosive evidence that could bring down the state government. However they're not the only ones who know where it is, and retrieving it is going to prove deadly for someone. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)