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Intelligence (series) * Chris Haddock (2005-7)

I find “Intelligence” a very interesting, Canadian show. There have been two series, but the end of the second is so open that a third can always follow. After six years, I do not suppose that this is going to happen. If you like high-speed and especially high-information series, “Intelligence” may be for you. It is a crime-series with shows the view of all involved parties, government, criminals, etc. All these different groups have enmities, but also contact; everybody tries to build a network that is most benificial for their own goals and it is hard to keep up with who is who and what is what and what everybody is upto and that exactly is the charm of the series.
We have Mary Spalding of Organised Crime who is trying to set up an international intelligence network by catching criminals and recruiting them for information. Additionally Mary goes at lengths to move ‘up the ladder’ and becoming head of CSIS (I think this is the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) for which she has to manipulate things. Mary has a couple of employees and colleagues who also try their best to get rid of Mary and other people for their own carreers. According to the cover, the spider in the series is Jimmy Reardom, a crafty businessman working both upper- and underground with his close pal Ronnie Delmonico. Two two run a stripclub the Chick A Dee, Jimmy has a cargo fleet and a lumber business. Together the two smuggle and sell weed, but no harddrugs. Jimmy is an informant for Mary trying as much to get information out of her as she out of him.
Espionage, counter-espionage, rivalling criminal groups, rivalling government agencies and all that on the Canadian/USA border (the series play in Vancouver and Seattle). The acting is great, the stories wonderfull, the characters interesting. “Intelligence” remains a big-audience production in the sense that it is ‘just’ a well-produced crime thriller, but if you like the genre, you might want to look out for these series.

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