After the success of the pilot on ITV1 last year, crime drama DCI Banks returns for a full series this autumn.

> Buy the Series 1 DVD on Amazon.

Stephen Tompkinson and Andrea Lowe are back as the tenacious and stubborn detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks and the feisty and headstrong DS Annie Cabbott in three stories adapted from the novels of writer Peter Robinson.

Episode 1: ‘Playing With Fire’ (Part One)
Friday 16th September 2011, 9pm

DCI Alan Banks is taken to a canal where there has been a fatal fire. The crime is far from straightforward, and as another body is discovered the motive, as well as the intended victim, become increasingly unclear. However, the discovery of what appears to be a Turner landscape suggests that at least one of the victim’s was involved in an art forgery scam.

When the team is able to identify one of the victims as Christina Aspern, Banks soon comes into contact with her estranged family and immediately suspects her father – an esteemed GP – and his young wife are withholding something from him.

As Annie Cobbot detects a growing personal animosity between Banks and the Aspern’s, her ambitious efforts to lead the case herself serves only to drive a wedge between her and Banks, and sends her into the arms of Mark Keane, the art expert in the investigation.

Episode 2: ‘Playing With Fire’ (Part Two)
Friday 23rd September 2011, 9pm

When Tom McMahon becomes the third victim of a spate of suspicious fires, Banks realises that he is now on the trail of a serial killer. Warned by his superiors to keep his distance from the Aspern family who are attempting to lodge a complaint against him, Banks resolves to find the ringleader of the art forgery scam which links two of the victims, known only as the mysterious ‘Morrison’.

Meanwhile, Annie continues her relationship with Mark Keane, despite Banks’ warnings about compromising the integrity of the investigation. When a new discovery about the methods used by the killer casts doubt on the alibis of all his suspects, Banks is determined to get to the truth at the Aspern’s house.

But when Banks finally identifies the true identity of ‘Morrison’, he quickly realises that Annie has been placed in mortal danger. Can Banks apprehend the killer and save Annie from being burned alive?

Episode 3: ‘Friend of the Devil’ (Part One)
Friday 30th September 2011, 9pm

DCI Banks informs Annie of a murder that has taken place on the Moors and for the first time asks her to head up the investigation. Thevictimwas found in her wheel chair with a cut throat and a disfigured face. The body has been discovered in the same place that Marcus and Lucy Payne, a previously gruesome case for Banks, buried one of their victims.

Whilst Annie heads to the Moors, Banks heads to the Market Square to investigate the murder of a teenage girl, whose bodyhas been found in a storage room down an alleyway. The motive for her death isn’t clear, but a local shop owner, Timothy Randall,who discovers the body, comes under immediate suspicion. When Annie heads to a local care home to try and identify the victim on the Moors, she soon makes a shocking discovery; the dead girl is Lucy Payne.

Banks meets new pathologist, Elizabeth Waring and together they begin to unravel the psychology of the case, although Annie immediately questions her assumptions. Banks appears to make progress in his case when he is able to identify the DNA of Randall on the victim’s clothing and makes an arrest. But whilst he is in custody, a second alleyway murder takes place.

Episode 4: ‘Friend of the Devil’ (Part Two)
Friday 7th October 2011, 9pm

When the body Kevin Templeton is discovered in an alleyway, Banks and his team find themselves investigating the murder of one of their own. Annie is convinced of a link between the murder of Lucy Payne and Templeton, but with no evidence to support her claims, she is dismissed as trying to push her own career ambitions.

When Timothy Randall is found to be innocent of Hayley Daniels’ murder, Banks finds his investigation must go back to the drawing board. Not until Annie receives new information from another force altogether can she begin to uncover the real connection between the three murders. But when Annie turns to someone she trusts for answers about conflicting evidence, she finds the true identity of Templeton’s killer to be far closer to home.

Meanwhile, Banks has proved how Hayley Daniels’ real murderer committed his crime without being caught on CCTV and intercepts Annie and the serial killer, but not before Annie has revealed a shocking secret about her own past.

Episode 5: ‘Cold as the Grave’ (Part One)
Friday 14th October 2011, 9pm

An armed robbery takes a sinister twist when the culprit is brutally executed in his own home. Before DCI Banks can begin to unravel the case, his superior officer, Chief Superintendent Gerry Rydell, has made a personal plea for Banks to find his missing teenage daughter. A series of nude photographs found on the internet by Rydell’s wife, Rosalind, suggest that she might be in London and Rydell would like Banks to bring his daughter home, without official police involvement.

Reluctantly, Banks accepts and soon tracks Emily Rydell to the home of a dangerous drug dealer, where he attempts to persuade Emily to return with him to Yorkshire. Although she initially refuses, Emily changes her mind and Banks is able to complete his unofficial mission before resuming his duties.

DS Annie Cabbot, who has been leading the investigation into the robber’s murder in his absence, believes the robbery to have been staged, but the victim’s accomplice won’t talk. Banks tries to concentrate on his work, but when Emily contacts him again and suggests that she has seen one of Clough’s associates in Leeds, Banks urges Emily to tell him anything she might know about Clough’s business, but she refuses.

Later, when a battered body is found in an Eastvale nightclub, Banks is shocked to learn that the victim has been identified as Ruth Walker, a friend to Emily in London. But when the true identity of the victim is revealed, Banks and Annie find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy which has changed both investigations unimaginably.

Episode 6: ‘Cold as the Grave’ (Part Two)
Friday 21st October 2011, 9pm

With Emily Rydell dead, apparently brutally beaten, DCI Banks quickly finds himself at the heart of a murder investigation with any number of suspects.

How did the murderer lock Emily into the cubicle from the inside? Why did Emily have Ruth Walker’s credit card? What did Emily know about the activities of Brian Clough and was this the reason for her death?

When a surveillance operation establishes a clear link between the murder of Charles McKay and Brian Clough, Banks and Annie realise that the two cases must be connected. Their investigation takes a number of alarming twists that soon start to uncover a conspiracy pointing to one of their own team being a criminal informer.

But as Banks pushes all the suspects hard, the case threatens to undermine his own integrity as an officer and brings his relationship with Annie to breaking point. Who can they trust in the search for the truth?

> Buy the Series 1 DVD on Amazon.

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