Perhaps the most intense individual on the small screen, DCI Alan Banks, is set for a return in the not-too-distant future. The third series of DCI Banks, starring Stephen Tompkinson, Andrea Lowe and Caroline Catz, will transmit soon on ITV and then follow with a public television broadcast in the States beginning in April 2014. As with the previous two series, the new set of programs are based on the internationally successful novels from the mind palace of author and Banks creator Peter Robinson. The first story, “Wednesday’s Child”, which revolves around a strange and sinister child abduction apparently undertaken by a man and a woman claiming to be social workers, is written by lead writer Robert Murphy.
 

 
The series sees the return from maternity leave of DS Annie Cabbot, played by Andrea Lowe, who is immediately thrown into an unbelievably intense case for a new single mother. Having acknowledged their feelings for one another in the last series, the new episodes introduce the added tension as to whether a romantic relationship between Banks and Annie can ever be a reality. However, there are inevitable complications as the pair come to acknowledge their own unique and challenging roles as colleagues and parents.

Caroline Catz, who seemingly takes a page out of the Doctor Martin Ellingham playbook, returns to the series playing DI Helen Morton, the disarmingly blunt and often socially inept (sound famliar?) detective who joined Banks’ team when Annie left for maternity.

The upcoming series 3 will also sees the surprise introduction of Banks’ university dropout daughter, Tracy. Although on the surface, Banks and Tracy have a good relationship, it becomes clear that neither father nor daughter really know each other as well as they pretend. The distance between the pair means Banks cannot see the real danger Tracy soon throws herself into until it is too late.

Episode 2 will be “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 pop band. Having read this particular Robinson novel, I cannot wait to see how they pull this off and I’m already in on buying the soundtrack. In the final story “Bad Boy”, which is adapted by Catherine 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.