This miniseries series is a twisting thriller where nothing is as it seems.

This crime thriller can easily be watched in a weekend (Image: IMDB)

Earlier this year I binge watched the German time-travel thriller Dark. I loved every second of it, and so when I saw there was another top-rated German thriller streaming on Netflix I knew I had my next watch lined up.

Dear Child is a crime thriller which was released in 2020. Based on the book of the same name, it follows a woman held in captivity in an underground bunker with two young children. When she manages to escape the claustrophobic underground bunker, she is hit by a car and taken to hospital. Then, a 13-year-old missing persons case is reopened and the twisting storyline takes on a mind of its own.

Hans Löw plays frazzled detective Gerd Bühling (Image: IMDB)

Director and head writer Isabel Kleefeld told Netflix that the show is different from other crime thrillers.

She said: “Dear Child is different in that the story is told from the victim’s perspective, never from the perpetrator’s perspective. That was also something special about the novel, which had a great attraction for us.”

The man at the heart of the crime is shown in fragmented snippets, chest, arms or the back of his head, but his menacing presence is felt throughout the six part miniseries.

Kleefeld continued: “The result is an exciting game with reality, a puzzle that the audience can always add to and reassemble. It is the story of a crime that has many victims, directly or indirectly.”

The star performance in this show is Nalia Schuberth, who plays the precocious and sinister Hannah, one of the children locked away in the dungeon. From such a young actor, her performance is gripping — she is just the right balance of sympathetic and eerie.

Sammy Schrein and Naila Schuberth play Jonathon and Hannah (Image: IMDB)

The series is short but thrilling, and easily watched over a quiet weekend. In fact, it seems designed to be binge watched with almost every episode ending on a cliffhanger. This, I will admit, can get a little tiresome, but the show is well worth watching regardless.

It has a 7.3 star rating on IMDB and viewers say it is “captivating” and ““Unsettling in the best way. “

One person wrote in their review: “This is a straight mystery, no love triangles mixed in, which I appreciated. You feel like you’re one of the detectives by the fragmented way the story is told, which makes it both frustrating and amazing.”

Another said: Once you start Dear Child you find it hard to look away….I was completely entranced by this series. I beg of people not to watch it subbed. The subbing takes away from it, watch it in German with subtitles as it is meant to be watched.”