By Ian Rankin and Mark Thomson. Directed by Chris Lam. An Ensemble Theatre Company production. At the Jericho Arts Centre on Thursday, July 12. Continues until August 16

Broadchurch, The Fall, Happy Valley: we are currently enjoying a renaissance of British crime drama. These shows tend to feature a damaged, middle-aged copper investigating the barbaric murders of, almost always, young women. The police protagonists are often haunted by unresolved anxieties about a decades-old case.

Ensemble Theatre Company’s Dark Road is very much in this vein. Chief Supt. Isobel McArthur (Rebecca Walters) has been on the force for 30 years. In the centralization of Scotland’s police services, she’s been overlooked for a promotion and is contemplating retirement.

And yet she has nagging doubts about a 25-year-old case. She made a name for herself by arresting serial killer Alfred Chalmers, responsible for the death of four young women. Meanwhile, Isobel’s daughter Alexandra (Alysson Hall) is a handful as she wraps up her film-studies degree. We later learn she’s made an unorthodox choice of subject for her final project.

The play is written by famed Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin and Mark Thomson, the artistic director of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre. Rankin has written 25 novels, most of which are police procedurals featuring Det.-Insp. John Rebus, who hunts bad guys in the grungy back alleys of the Scottish capital. So, storywise, Dark Road isn’t a stretch for Rankin.

Director Chris Lam stages the production in the thrust-style theatre at the Jericho Arts Centre. Audiences on three sides of the playing space make the on-stage action appropriately claustrophobic, as does Patrick J. Smith’s gloomy lighting design. The whole show has an eerie undercurrent, exemplified by sequences where Isobel is stalked by an attacker wearing a fox’s head.

As Isobel, Rebecca Walters is the maypole around which all this creepiness spins. She shoulders this burden capably, offering a straight-ahead, unfettered performance. Other roles were less consistent, though I did admire the cocksure menace that Paul Herbert brought the role of Chalmers.

When actors struggle with dialogue, it’s usually because of one of two things: they’re underrehearsed or the script isn’t as fluent as it could be. Good dialogue has a rhythm that makes it easy not only to say, but also to memorize. This is Rankin’s first-ever play. At two hours and 45 minutes long, it often lacks subtext and is burdened with long speeches that need an editor’s red pen.

The play also lacks a veteran dramatist’s savvy. For example, there are a couple of momentum-killing scenes where a character just listens to recorded police interviews.

If you can’t get enough of British police dramas, then you’ll enjoy this dark and spooky journey into Isobel and Chalmers’s past. If not, opt for a different path than this dark road.