When ITV recently announced that DCI Banks, starring Stephen Tomkinson, would return for a third season in 2014 on both ITV in the UK and on public television stations in the States, my first thought was that with the addition of George Gently, Endeavour, Inspector Lewis, Scott & Bailey, New Tricks and Foyle’s War, I’m not sure my brain (or DVR) can handle any more stellar police prodecurals. Let’s not forget, we still have Sherlock, Death in Paradise and Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries still waiting in the wings to premiere. Then I remembered just what good telly DCI Banks is and never gave it second thought.
 

Series three will see the return of both DS Annie Cabbot, played by Andrea Lowe, and Caroline Catz (Doc Martin) as DI Helen Morton. Adding to DCI Alan Banks’ internal tension for series 3 will be Tracy, Banks’ university dropout daughter. The 6 x 60 third series will see two episodes devoted to each of the three stories based on the internationally successful novels from the pen of author and Banks creator Peter Robinson entitled ‘Wednesday’s Child’, ‘Piece of My Heart’ and ‘Bad Boy’. Having just finished reading ‘Piece of My Heart’, I cannot wait to see how this brilliant story plays out on the small screen. If you haven’t read any of Robinson’s DCI Banks creation, I suggest you make it a point to check them out as part of your Tellyspotting Summer Reading Program List, which is growing by the day now that I’ve added the novels of Kate Atkinson (Case Histories) and Kerry Greenwood (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) to the mix.

‘Wednesday’s Child’, first up in series three, revolves around a strange and sinister child abduction undertaken by a man and a woman claiming to be social workers, will be written by lead writer Robert Murphy (Strike Back, Cape Wrath) and Rob Williams (Eastenders, Holby City). Murphy will also adapt ‘Piece of My Heart’, where the body of a journalist in a remote village connects Banks to a death in the 1980s revolving around the surviving members of a cult band. Finally, in ‘Bad Boy’, which will be written and adapted by Cath Tregenna (Lewis, Law & Order: UK), a terrible chain of events is set in motion by the discovery of a loaded gun in a young girl’s bedroom, that ultimately puts Banks’ daughter in mortal danger.

Set in Yorkshire, series three will begin filming in August and should be on telly in 2014. Looks like it’s time to upgrade that cable package and add a bit of memory to the DVR.