‘Crossmaheart’ is an investigative thriller set against a backdrop of thirty years of division in Northern Ireland.
Kevin Miller, a young Protestant journalist from Belfast, is deeply affected by the death of his father. As a result of arriving drunk at his office, he is sent to work on The Chronicle, a sister paper in the small and seedy country town of Crossmaheart. Jamie Milburn, his predecessor, has disappeared, presumed dead. Miller arrives in town on his trusty mountain bike bringing his conscience with him in the shape of his father’s ghost. There he discovers that his new editor, O’Hagan, is doing very little to find out what has happened to Jamie, now missing for two weeks. Miller is told not to become involved. Mistakenly going into a Republican pub, Miller meets Marie, Jamie’s girlfriend, a vivacious, highly strung Catholic girl. They hit it off right away; both are sickened by the years of bigotry and sectarian violence and have no truck with religious differences. Marie also has her ghost to lay - she is haunted by a recurrent nightmare of sexual assault when she was a young girl. Believing that Jamie was killed because of a story he was working on, Marie is shocked by the lack of interest being displayed by The Chronicle and the police. Despite his editor’s warning Miller decides to carry out his own investigation. It is after talking to maverick cop, Craig, that he suspects the disappearance of Jamie may be connected to Marie’s assault. The fifteen year old file on Marie’s case reveals the names of the three men found guilty. One by one Miller tracks them down and confronts them. But Craig hints there may have been a fourth rapist, protected by law because he was a juvenile at the time. Further investigation reveals this to be his editor, O’Hagan. After confronting him, O’Hagan kills himself. Justice done, Marie is freed of her past and together, in love, they return to Belfast. Based on the novel ‘Cycle of Violence’by Colin Bateman Starring: Gerard Rooney, Maria Lennon & Enda Oates Directed by Henry Herbert A Lexington film, set in Ireland.
