OLD SCORES

Toronto Detective-Sergeant Barry Gilbert (Fall Guy, 2001, etc.) battles to keep his wife out of jail and his daughter out of the terminal ward in the case of the murdered music promoter.

Twenty-five years ago, when Glen Boyd was riding high as Canada’s premier rock promoter, Regina Gilbert, like dozens of other young women smitten by his power and charm, had a fling with him—maybe more than a fling, Gilbert ruefully acknowledges when Boyd is strangled and clouds of suspicion start to gather above Regina. Though everybody on Metro Homicide agrees that Regina couldn’t possibly kill anybody, the clouds refuse to disperse, even when Gilbert throws his best efforts into building successive cases against legendary folksinger Judy Pelaez, Boyd’s much-wronged ex; Phil Thompson, the desperate musician unable to make a comeback since his band Mother Courage broke up years ago; Stacy Todd, Boyd’s infatuated secretary; and Oscar Barcos, Boyd’s drug connection, who obviously killed two other associates but proves a solid alibi for Boyd’s murder. Soon enough, Gilbert’s higher-ups turn the evidence over to the Crown Prosecutor and pull him off the case. It’s almost enough to make him forget that his daughter Nina’s first sex partner has just been diagnosed with AIDS, putting her own life at grave risk.

A neatly turned presentation of the classic too-close-to-home scenario, with a particular flair for bringing each of Glen Boyd’s sorely used victims to life.