The Commander

Commander Clare Blake has risen to the top of her profession in the male-dominated Metropolitan Police Service, and is now the head of the serious crimes unit. Some years previously, she arrested James Lampton (Hugh Bonneville) for the…

Things become complicated when Blake and Lampton become intimate, and the question arises whether he is being honest with her, or whether he is simply a master manipulator. Meanwhile, DCI Hedges and his team find themselves under…

A murderer is using his computer expertise to blackmail hospital doctors, and threatens that a patient will die every twenty-four hours unless his demands are met. Commander Blake has her own personal problems - she is being stalked by…

The police are still no closer to the blackmailer and Vera and Eileen Judd, the sisters of one of his victims, are chasing compensation for medical negligence. Brenda Thornton has managed to escape from the secure psychiatric unit and…

Detective Chief Constable Blackton begins an investigation into both the Cripps shooting and the investigation into James Lampton, which drags up problems for both Commander Blake and D.C.I. Hedges. Matters become worse when Blackton…

Blackton's investigation gets closer to the truth.

The perfectly-preserved body of a two-year-old girl is found in a sealed oil drum in the basement of the derelict Elliston psychiatric hospital. Commander Blake assumes the role of senior investigating officer from DI Doug James, creating…

The murder of Mrs Thornton makes Eric the prime suspect for both deaths, but conflicts with a parallel investigation into the landscape gardening business where Eric works threaten to undermine both cases.

When DCI Janet Chambers (Connie Hyde) goes into labor, Commander Clare Blake takes charge of the investigation into the death of a two-year-old girl found on the site of a now abandoned psychiatric institute. The girl has been dead for…

Eric Thornton and John Littlewood figure prominently in hospital files, but when it's confirmed that Littlewood has died, the police focus all their effort on Thornton. A dark history of mental problems and violence related to them,…

The body of a self-made millionaire is found floating in his swimming pool two days after he was arrested by the Serious Fraud Office, having been siphoning funds to fund a lavish lifestyle with a wife and two mistresses. Commissioner…

A post mortem examination shows that Donald Griffith died from a blow to the neck, and not by drowning, supporting DCI James's theory that one or other of the women in his life had decided to profit from his death. Dutch detective Van…

A priest is brutally beaten and stabbed to death on an east London estate, where bad feeling between residents and police threatens to undermine the investigation. Suspicion falls on local boxing protege Jimmy Bannerman, but progress is…

As the investigation continues, suspicion shifts from Jimmy Bannerman to Terry Donnolly when an eyewitness puts him at the scene of the murder and information on his troubled childhood comes to light. Doug has been coping with his own…

DAC Sumpter asks Commander Clare Blake to take charge of the investigation when Joan Hall, mother of former DS Brian Hall, is found beaten to death in her own home, and Brian is accused of the murder. When his prints are found on the…

Clare begins to feel the pressure of two high-profile yet deeply personal cases coinciding. The investigation to the abduction of James' baby leads to the mothers at Zoe's maternity classes, while Brian Hall still has no recollection of…

Acting on instinct, Clare digs deeper only to find that the truth is more shocking than any of them could have imagined. The investigation into James' missing baby leads Clare to Fiona George, a fellow mother at Zoe's maternity classes.…