The first body drops amid the bunting of England’s World Cup victory night, and Rafe Spall’s young detective Frank Taylor quickly learns that catching a cop-killer is a career and a curse. Mel Raido’s Billy Porter slips away into Soho’s underworld, while Steven Robertson’s ambitious crime reporter Tony Meehan trades on his inside knowledge and watches the story eclipse him. Across three episodes that leap from 1966 to 1971 and finally to 1984, the same question haunts every frame: what does it cost to stay obsessed?
Adrian Shergold keeps the period detail brittle rather than nostalgic; David Odd’s camera prowls through smoke-filled pubs and strip-lit newsrooms where everyone knows the rules and everyone breaks them. Kelly Reilly drifts through as Jeannie, widow of the first murdered officer, carrying the show’s bruised heart in a performance that refuses easy pity. By the time the final confrontation arrives on a rainswept Thames embankment, the chase has consumed three lives and two decades, leaving only the viewer with the luxury of hindsight.
ITV stripped the serial across three consecutive Sundays in spring 2008, pulling 4 million for the opener and shedding a million each week, yet the drama’s tight 180-minute arc feels built for the box-set era that followed. Ed Whitmore’s adaptation trims Jake Arnott’s novel but keeps its cold thesis: in London’s shifting power games, the only thing sharper than a policeman’s warrant card is a headline that writes itself. The closing credits roll over Ben Bartlett’s echoing brass motif and a row of unmarked graves; nobody walks away clean.
Production Details
ITV1 / 1 Season / 3 Episodes / 2008
Created by: Ed Whitmore
Showrunner(s): Douglas Rae, Robert Bernstein
Writer(s): Ed Whitmore
Producer(s): David Boulter
Cinematography: David Odd
Music: Ben Bartlett
Main Cast
Maureen Lipman as Lily Porter
Mel Raido as Billy Porter
Kelly Reilly as Jeannie
Liam Garrigan as Jonathan Young
Rafe Spall as Frank Taylor
Steven Robertson as Tony Meehan
John Snowden as Bar Brawler
Steven O'Neill as British Officer (uncredited)
