Get Millie Black: Marlon James’ HBO show does something similar to his novels.

Detective shows are often full of clichés. But HBO’s Get Millie Black, set in Jamaica, is not that kind of show. Orville is now Hibiscus, a transgender sex worker who lives in the Gully, a dry paved canal bed running through the city, and Get Millie Black’s emblem of Jamaica’s paradoxes. There’s a sturdy detective story running through Get Millie Black, but what makes the series stand out is how James uses the form to achieve something similar to his 2014 masterpiece, the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings. So much of Get Millie Black is familiar, but what makes the series fresh is the conviction it brings to the genre’s pro forma tropes.