Writer George Kay certainly knows how to solve a mystery. The success of his Netflix series “Lupin” and his Apple TV drama “Hijack” (especially the first season) have proven his abilities. With his latest crime drama, BritBox’s “Gone,” loosely inspired by Julie Mackay and Robert Murphy’s true crime novel, “To Hunt A Killer,” Kay further proves that he has mastered suspense and the art of building tension. Although it begins as a mystery drama, “Gone” slowly unfolds into a story about obsession, emotional ineptitude, and the horrible things men do when they’re not given what they want.
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“Gone” is set in Bristol, England, and begins at a rugby match at the prestigious St. Bartholomew’s private school. As his team scores the winning goal, St. Bartholomew’s principal and coach Michael Polly (a brooding David Morrissey) stares at the field stiff and stone-faced. Despite the joyful celebration happening in front of him, he doesn’t even crack a smile. When the game ends, Michael and his 25-year-old daughter, Alana (Emma Appleton), who is also a teacher at St. Bartholomew’s, return home after he berates star player Dylan Sedgwick (Billy Barratt) for what he considers unsportsmanlike behavior. For decades, they have lived on the school grounds, in the house assigned to the principal and his family.
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However, this is not a normal night. Although his reading glasses and a cold cup of tea are in his office, Michael’s wife, Sarah (Hollie Bailey), a music teacher, is nowhere to be found. Your phone keeps going to voicemail. When he still hasn’t shown up the next morning, Alana panics and urges her father to report her mother missing. Detective Sergeants Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles) and Becky Hammond (Jennifer Macbeth) first meet Michael when he arrives at Redland police station to inform them of Sarah’s disappearance. Although the frigid director answers her questions about his wife and his own timeline without style, his behavior immediately puts Annie on edge. It’s clear that Michael is hiding something.
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Not wanting to raise the alarm just yet, Annie and Becky label Sarah a low-risk missing person and head to St. Barths to begin a more formal interview process with Michael and Alana. Before she can fully unravel Sarah’s disappearance, Annie is forced to take on a new role as the family’s liaison, watching father and daughter 24 hours a day as she tries to piece together what may have happened to Sarah. As the hours pass, Alana continues to fall apart emotionally while Michael retreats inward, hindering law enforcement and their staff and moving forward with life as usual.
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Despite being relegated to glorified nanny duty, Annie begins to piece together a portrait of the Pollys. You quickly understand that the image projected towards others is very different from the truth of who they really are. Because their lives are so deeply rooted in school, other things also come into focus, including the tension between Michael and Dylan and the secret romance Alana is having with fellow teacher Paul Whitchurch (Nicholas Nunn). Meanwhile, although Annie feels left out of the case, she is not at the top of her game. The unsolved case of a friend missing 20 years ago continues to haunt her, and she is distracted by the re-emergence in her life of her ex-husband, Detective Inspector Craig Stanhope (Peter McDonald). Although she’s showing signs of being as volatile as ever, Annie can’t seem to resist rekindling their romance.
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In just six episodes, “Gone” comes to a resolution and the audience discovers what happened to Sarah Polly. But the series is careful to throw suspicion in a multitude of directions, not just toward Michael but toward several people in Sarah’s orbit who only reveal themselves when they find themselves cornered. The bombs are exposed little by little and the pace keeps viewers holding their breath for most of the show. As Annie gets closer to the truth, she realizes that violence often has many different faces, and usually the more insidious it is, the more horrible the result.

The first three episodes of “Gone” debut July 23 on BritBox, with the remaining episodes airing weekly on Thursdays.