At least there s one Strike’we’re glad to see!

J. K. Rowling’s crimebuster and his partner are back – hunting a brutal killer

STRIKE: TROUBLED BLOOD

Sunday and Monday, BBC1, 9pm

You have to understand, this is a very cold case. You won’t find the answers and it’ll cost a lot getting there.’ Devotees of the stories of private detective Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) know he is nothing if not brutally honest and frank. The world-weary creation of J.K. Rowling (under her nom de plume Robert Galbraith) is a plainspeaking Jeremiah as he takes on his latest case and warns his new client just what lies ahead in the fifth and latest BBC adaptation of the best-selling thriller novels.

He and his partner in crimebusting Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger, left with Burke) are delving far back into the past as they take on what turns out to be their first cold case.

In the four-part tale of Troubled Blood, the sleuthing duo have to immerse themselves in the 1970s at their very sleaziest. Their client is the daughter of a female GP who disappeared one day in 1974 – at the same time as a serial killer who had claimed the lives of at least seven women was on the loose.

Could she have been another of his victims – or might the answer lie somewhere else in her complex private life?

The investigation quickly lifts the lid on the blatant sexism and even violent misogyny that was all too often the norm in the era, everywhere from relationships and the workplace to nightclubs and pubs. It’s a deeply troubling case that will test Strike and his powers of detection as never before – while for Ellacott, the issues that it raises makes bringing the killer to justice a personal crusade at which she’s determined not to fail.

As fans of Strike have come to expect, this is a story crafted with measured artistry and packed with shocks, twists and turns when long-standing assumptions about the past are shattered.

But we’re also sure to be drawn into the emotive depths as we discover the tragic truth about lives blighted by the horror of murder.

Alongside the superb two leads of Burke and Grainger is a tremendous supporting cast including Cherie Lunghi, Kenneth Cranham and also an actor who, for viewers of a certain age, particularly embodies the cheerier if naughty side of the 1970s: Robin Askwith, star of the Confessions series of adult comedies.

And keep an eye out for the crucial part of a former nurse, Janice Beattie, played by Anna CalderMarshall – the mother of Tom Burke.