Ice Cold Murders: Rocco Schiavone

More4, 9pm

Rocco Schiavone (Marco Giallini, right with Isabella Ragonese) is a character in the classic tradition of the awkward ’tec who neither fits in with the force nor knows how to play by the rules – but still, of course, gets results when it counts.

As fans already know from season one, our policeman antihero, with his curmudgeonly personality, has been exiled from his beloved home city of Rome to a remote posting in the snowy north of Italy. Now, in this second, eight-epsiode outing, we discover what went wrong a decade ago in the Eternal City when he was mired in some rather dubious business in between solving crimes.

So begins a grittily watchable saga of murder and drugs, as Schiavone lurches between world-weary cynicism and moral dilemmas. ★★★★