WB Adds a Good Mystery With ‘Glory Days’

Spooky, mysterious, well-acted “Glory Days” is a nice midseason addition to the WB schedule, introducing Mike Dolan (Eddie Cahill) as a 25-year-old greeted by anger, suspicion and turbulence upon returning to his hometown four years after loosely depicting its residents in a best-selling mystery novel connected to his father’s supposedly accidental death.

Keep your eye here on “supposedly.”

The town, actually an island in the Pacific Northwest, is Glory; the title of Mike’s book is “Glory Days.” Yet there is nothing glorious about the murder case that involves him after he witnesses a man shoved from a ferry into the water by an anonymous assailant. Although you won’t be chewing on your nails, the premiere features some twisty suspense and a seductively murky ambience.

This series, from Kevin Williamson (“Dawson Creek”), delivers a different mystery each week. Tonight’s has Mike trying to persuade his alienated former chum, Rudy Dunlop (Jay R. Ferguson), now the local sheriff, that the ferry passenger’s death was not accidental. Rudy will have none of it, still steamed over being portrayed in Mike’s book as a gay doofus. At least the doofus part fits.

Just as angry over the book are Mike’s mother, Mitzi (Frances Fisher), and older sister, Sara (Amy Stewart), who reluctantly hires him as a reporter on the local paper she inherited from her father. His strongest ally is his little sister, Sam (Emily VanCamp), their sweet, tender moments together becoming the hour’s highlight.

Another friend is local coroner Ellie Sparks (Poppy Montgomery, so outstanding as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde”), and surfacing less frequently in the premiere is sultry diner owner Hazel Walker. She seems destined for greater prominence because the actress playing her (Theresa Russell) is too capable and well known to squander as a footnote. Besides, Hazel was deemed a murderer in Mike’s book, making her initial ambivalence toward him all the more interesting. Get the drift?

Meanwhile, as tonight’s episode rolls on, what about that body on the slab?

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“Glory Days” premieres tonight at 9 on the WB. The network has rated it TV-PG-LV (may be unsuitable for young children, with special advisories for coarse language and violence).