BLACK MOSS adapted from the Manchester Noir novels by journalist and author David Nolan by Stuart Wright.
GENRE: Crime. Drama. Thriller.
LOGLINE: When a disgraced TV host quits drinking, he returns to his home city of Manchester to revisit the three decades old murder of an unknown child that haunts him to this day.
DANNY JOHNSTON
“The placing of the body is very telling, isn’t it? Right on the border.”
DI SMITHDOWN
“Bollocks. You’ve been watching too much telly. So has the DS. They panicked! Whoever did this was shitting themselves. They left that kid there because they got scared and ran off.”
BLACK MOSS is
…a gripping thriller, straddling two timelines: 1990 and the present day, centred around BLACK MOSS, a reservoir on the east border of Greater Manchester and site of an underreported child murder.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of an unidentified 10 year old BOY left facedown on the beach at Black Moss Reservoir; of an INEXPERIENCED JOURNALIST being unprepared for the impact of seeing his first dead body.
IT’S THE PRESENT DAY STORY of the drink-driving downfall of the TV CELEBRITY that the Inexperienced Journalist became.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of the GREATER MANCHESTER POLICE being so distracted by the STRANGEWAYS PRISON RIOTS that the murder of a CHILD IN CARE is not a priority. Except for one DETECTIVE INSPECTOR who uses the Inexperienced Journalist to keep the story alive.
IT’S THE PRESENT DAY STORY of the TV Celebrity quitting drinking and returning to his home city of Manchester to reinvestigate THE murder case that has haunted him for over three decades.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of a KILLER getting away with murder when the police and media are all looking the other way.
IT’S THE PRESENT DAY STORY of a RETIRED DETECTIVE INSPECTOR who never lost faith in the Inexperienced Journalist.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of an AMBITIOUS DETECTIVE SERGEANT who knows that attending to Strangeways will ascend him up the career ladder quicker than digging around Black Moss.
IT’S THE PRESENT DAY STORY of the sober surprise that people you thought were horrible being REALLY HELPFUL.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of the shocking realisation that an Officer can appear to be a GOOD COPPER and a CHILD KILLER.
IT’S THE PRESENT DAY STORY of ONE COPPER dedicating the rest of their career to trying to stop cases like Black Moss ever happening again.
IT’S THE 1990 STORY of exposing horrific inadequacies in a system that allows children in care to go missing with such regularity that there ceases to be any organised police involvement in child protection for them.
IT’S THE 1990 and PRESENT DAY STORY of a professional relationship with a FEMALE JOURNALIST that promises much but because of his emotional turmoil could never be more than platonic.
IT’S THE 1990 and PRESENT DAY STORY of CHAOS, pain and frustration unleashed when faith is placed in establishments and people in authority who have no thirst for true justice.
BLACK MOSS is about how the truth can be missed by the GOOD and diverted by the BAD but can never FORGOTTEN or erased. It’s about the nature of MEMORIES soaked in alcohol for over thirty years being reviewed through the clear prism of sobriety for the very first time. It’s about never giving up on what matters to you the most.
