‘Scarpetta’ is a captivating murder mystery — and a high-wire balancing act

In Scarpetta, the new mystery series now streaming on Prime Video, Nicole Kidman plays medical examiner Kay Scarpetta — but she isn’t the only one portraying the character.

The narrative in Scarpetta unfolds as two different mysteries from two different timelines, and shifts between them like cards being shuffled in a deck. One timeline, in the present, has Kidman as Kay, returning to her old job after a long time off, and instantly faced with a baffling set of murders. The other timeline, from 1998, shows a younger Kay taking the job as chief medical examiner for the first time — and being hit with a serial murder case then, too.

In scenes from the past, Kay is played by a different actress, Rosy McEwen, who matches Kidman’s mannerisms and demeanor perfectly. It’s a high-wire balancing act, also required of almost all the other young actors, who manage to mirror their more mature counterparts convincingly and entertainingly.

That’s not an easy task, because the actors in the current timeline are major players, delivering excellent, wide-ranging performances. Jamie Lee Curtis plays Kay’s flamboyant sister, Dorothy, author of a popular series of children’s books. Bobby Cannavale plays plain-speaking, quick-tempered homicide detective Pete Marino, and Simon Baker plays cerebral FBI profiler Benton Wesley.

All of these movie stars have done exceptionally well on television: Baker on The Mentalist, Cannavale on Boardwalk Empire, Curtis on The Bear and Kidman in a string of small-screen triumphs, including Nine Perfect Strangers, The Perfect Couple and Big Little Lies.

When Kidman and Curtis share the screen, which is often, it’s incendiary. As youngsters, Kay witnessed their father’s death during a robbery — one of many differences between the two sisters.

Scarpetta is based on a series of novels by best-selling author Patricia Cornwell, who’s written 29 stories to date built around Kay Scarpetta. The modern parts of this first-season story — a follow-up second season already has been ordered — are inspired by Autopsy, the 25th book in her series. The murder mystery set in the past is from Cornwell’s very first Scarpetta novel, Postmortem, from 1990.

Liz Sarnoff, the writer-producer who developed this for television, combines them both, in a format that demands close attention — but rewards it, too. And she has experience writing for some extremely smart TV series, including ABC’s Lost and HBO’s Deadwood and Barry.

Sarnoff, working with a pool of directors and other writers, delivers solid mysteries in both storylines, as well as an intriguing subplot involving emotional dependence on an AI-generated personality. But it’s the characters, not the clues, that make Scarpetta so captivating. The veteran actors are rock-solid — Cannavale, especially, is terrific — and so are their younger counterparts. In one bit of very effective casting, the younger version of Cannavale’s detective is played by the actor’s own son, Jake.

I realize this whole series structure sounds complicated. And it is. But it’s rewarding, too. I’ve seen all eight episodes, and the plots and the characters really hold up. And I haven’t even mentioned Ariana DeBose, another major name in this production, who plays Dorothy’s daughter. Or Amanda Righetti, who plays Dorothy in the flashback scenes. There’s a lot to applaud here, and a lot to absorb. And with Prime Video streaming the entire series at once, you can gobble it up as fast as you can, to help keep things straight, just like a good novel. Or two good novels.