Chilling lessons in killer instincts
TRACES BBC1, 9pm
THIS cracking new drama was originally shown on the Alibi channel last year, but for anyone who missed it, this bump up to the Beeb for a re-run is a really welcome addition to primetime.
It’s been created by actor and writer Amelia Bullmore and bestselling author Val McDermid. And these women know what makes good crime drama, having been involved in the likes of Wire In The Blood, Scott & Bailey, Happy Valley and A Place of Execution.
The eight- part series follows lab technician Emma Hedges (played by Molly Windsor, who won a Bafta for Three Girls), who returns to her home city of Dundee for a new job at the Scottish Institute of Forensic Science.
The night before she starts there is a fatal fire at a local nightclub, which her new boss, forensics professor Sarah Gordon (The Missing’s Laura Fraser), is sent to investigate.
On her first day, Sarah and professor Kathy Torrence ( Jennifer Spence) tell Emma to enrol on the new Massive Open Online Course, which they’ve designed to help teach forensics by using a fictional murder as a case study.
Although as soon as Emma starts the course, she’s horrified to realise that the case study has remarkable and uncanny similarities to the murder of her mother Marie, who was killed when she was seven years old – with nobody ever convicted.
The series also stars John Gordon Sinclair, plus former EastEnder Laurie Brett and Line of Duty’s Martin Compston.