Brooding backdrop to a mysterious murder
ITV’S top-rating crime drama – based on the bestselling Inspector Stanhope books by award-winning writer Ann Cleeves – returns for a seventh series, as Vera and her team are drawn into four more compelling mysteries, including the death of a wildlife ranger, left alone overnight on a remote and inaccessible island.
Set around Newcastle and the stunning Northumberland countryside, Vera features complex and intriguing cases, atmospherically-shot landscapes and captivating performances, led by Bafta and Golden Globe award-winning actress Brenda Blethyn as the unorthodox but brilliant DCI Vera Stanhope.
In the first episode, Natural selection, DCI Vera Stanhope investigates a suspicious death on Ternstone, a remote and inaccessible island off the coast of Northumberland.
Ternstone is home only to numerous species of birds and the rangers who observe them. The last thing anyone expected to see was a body, cruelly washed up on the shore.
Gemma Wyatt, 28, was an experienced ranger who lived and worked on Ternstone for the Northumbria Wildlife Trust. While her devastated fiance Ryan (Matthew Wilson) and colleagues, led by head ranger Sophia (Suzanne Packer) believe Gemma’s death was an accident, marks found on her body quickly prove otherwise.
But as Gemma was left alone on the island overnight, the question remains – who could have made the treacherous journey out to sea and up the island’s impenetrable coastline to kill her? And why?
As suspicions turn to Gemma’s family and workmates, Vera starts to piece together an altogether different portrait of the popular and successful ranger, aided by DS Aiden Healy (Kenny Doughty), DC Hicham Cherradi (Noof McEwan), DC Kenny Lockhart (Jon Morrison) and the latest addition to the team, pathologist Dr Anthony Carmichael (Christopher Colquhoun).
In the process of her dogged investigations, Vera will unearth a web of secrets, rivalries and years of buried resentment that will lead her to the killer.