Karen Pirie
Sun, 8pm, ITV Drama (box set, ITV Hub)
Outlander’s Lauren
Lyle takes the title role of Scottish investigator DS Karen Pirie in a detective drama from the producers of Line of Duty and Bodyguard and which is based on Val Mcdermid’s crime novel The Distant Echo. Karen is tasked with reopening the unsolved murder of a young woman from 1996 that has been the subject of a provocative truecrime podcast.
When a historic murder investigation becomes the subject of a true-crime podcast, a young Scottish detective is tasked with reopening the case in new ITV thriller Karen Pirie.
The drama, based on crime writer Val Mcdermid’s book The Distant Echo, begins in 1996 as barmaid Rosie Duff is found murdered in the Scottish town of St Andrews.
Suspicion falls on the three students who ‘found’ Rosie’s body.
With charges never brought and the murder now the focus of a controversial podcast, DS Karen Pirie is put in charge of the cold-case review.
Determined
Karen vows to uncover what really happened that fateful night – and she’s doing things her way…
‘Karen doesn’t care what people think of her; she’s gonna do what she wants,’ says Vigil’s Lauren Lyle, who plays her. ‘She’s getting shouted at by older men who she knows are wrong. She thinks: “If they’d just let me go against protocol, I could get this solved.”’
Lauren admits she was daunted about taking on the lead role…
‘It was my first time leading a drama, so I wondered if I could tackle it – much like how Karen feels,’ says Lauren. ‘It’s a privilege. To get to do it at the age I’m at, and the stage I’m at, I’ve hit the jackpot.’