YOUR INDISPENSABLE SEVEN-DAY TV GUIDE... FAVOURITE PUZZLES AND THE ONE AND ONLY PIERS MORGAN TV& PUZZLES

I’ve decided to let you in on a secret. We didn’t plan to have another child. This is our “oops” baby.’ So confides popular social media influencer Meghan (Jessica De Gouw) to the many thousands of readers who are enthralled by her blog describing her affluent lifestyle.

It certainly seems to be an enviable existence that she enjoys in a luxurious suburban house in Sydney with her sports reporter husband Jack and their two children – soon to be joined by the new arrival.

Agatha (Laura Carmichael) is also heavily pregnant and lives not far away in the same suburb, yet in almost every other respect she might as well be in another universe. Living alone in a cramped small flat and working long, gruelling hours at a supermarket, her solitary, miserable existence is haunted by the trauma of a late miscarriage, and yet still she is determined to have the baby that she will care for as a single mother.

But the two women have one other thing in common: little about their lives is quite what it appears to be from the outside, and when they meet – apparently by chance – the terrible consequences will devastate the lives of almost everyone around them.

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Michael Robotham (itself loosely based on a real-life case), this gripping psychological thriller is catnip for anyone who enjoyed

Doctor Foster or Big Little Lies, as it similarly reveals what lies hidden beneath the surface of an outwardly perfect, happy middle-class family.

The Australian setting is a refreshing twist for British audiences – and the sophisticated drama (adapted by Robotham himself) will act as a persuasive corrective for anyone who imagines that television Down Under has never gone far beyond Ramsay Street.

But the Old Country is crucially still represented by British star Carmichael. She’s already proven herself on stage and screen, most notably as Lady Edith in Downton Abbey. Even so, her incendiary performance as the darkly conflicted Agatha is a revelation, elevating The Secrets She Keeps from an entertaining potboiler to a deeply emotive study of a woman whose grasp on reality grows more tenuous at every moment.

You may be able to guess some of the revelations that are coming up, up but just when you’re smugly congratulating yourself, other sensational twists and shocks will knock you out of your seat.

If you can’t wait to see where the story goes, the entire six-part series is available on iPlayer from

I GOT YOU, BABE:

Jessica De Gouw and Michael Dorman. Top: Laura Carmichael as Agatha

Monday, while those who prefer deferred gratification can wait for episode two on Tuesday. The series continues next week.