MURDER IN BATZ. FIT Productions, France, 16 October 2015 (Season 9, episode 2). Original title: Les blessures de l’île. Stéphane Freiss, Flore Bonaventura, François Marthouret, Sophie Le Tellier, Marie-José Nat. Director: Edwin Baily. Currently streaming on the MHz channel (as Season 1, Episode 2).

   It is difficult to obtain solid information about this made-for-French-TV movie. It is that, but it is also an episode of a long-running series with the overall title Murder in… . Each episode has a different pair of police detectives handling the case, almost always (if not always) the pair consisting two members of the opposite sex. (Some couples are on occasion repeated.) Each episode takes place in a picturesque location in France, differing from story to story with the local background generally playing a significant part of the story.

   Take this particular episode. Batz is a small island off the coast of Brittany, France, and when a murder takes place there and the weather is bad, the island is cut off from the mainland until the storm passes by. Taking the trip over before the rain begins is Inspector (?) Grégor Gourvennec, accompanied by a crime scene cleaner named Manon Le Gall. Dead is a real estate woman found in an old abandoned house facing the sea.

   As it turns out, both investigators have issues of their own to deal with. Grégor grew up on the island, but this is his first trip to there in twenty years, even though his mother and his former fiancée still live there.

   As for Manon, she is a medical student who cleans crime scenes to help pay her tuition bills, and once on the scene of the crime, she starts seeing ghosts, primarily that of a very young girl. Even more surprisingly, she also finds a grave with her own name and date of birth on it. Apparently she died there on the island when she was six.

   Naturally this adds a degree of complications not present in most mysteries, causing your typical viewer expecting a straightforward detective story (me) a certain amount of consternation. But believe it or not, the writers knew what they were doing, and by the end of the movie, all is explained to that fully confounded viewer’s complete satisfaction.

   All except for the visions of ghosts that Manon has, but that’s part of the charm of the entirely Gallic tale. One could only wish that the story didn’t have to take place entirely under overcast skies. Batz must look entirely different in the sunshine!