Critic Reviews

This is superb Sunday night viewing, and has a highly crafted, sinister, intriguing and, at times, Satanic quality that should keep you enthralled. Strike: Troubled Blood, in other words, is the BBC at its best.

This is superb Sunday night viewing, and has a highly crafted, sinister, intriguing and, at times, Satanic quality that should keep you enthralled. Strike: Troubled Blood, in other words, is the BBC at its best.

The two protagonists carry the day, though. C.B. and Robin are well worth rooting for as they sift their way through both the crimes at hand and their own personal dilemmas. So keep writing these characters, J.K. Rowling. They’re every bit as down to earth as Harry Potter was fantastical.

Strike is a slow-moving caper about a lovable curmudgeon that goes down particularly well on a bleak winter night at the end of another testing year. Forget boy wizards and their broomsticks. Strike: Troubled Blood delivered real escapism in magical quantities.

The characters could be stereotypes, but as imagined by Rowling, adapted and directed by Tom Edge and Sue Tully, and definitively portrayed by Burke and Grainger, they’re fully dimensional.

The plot hasn’t warmed up properly yet but it doesn’t really matter as the two main characters are so well-drawn, the yearning chemistry between them carrying things along, with Pat (Ruth Sheen) and Midge (Tupele Dorgu) in the office providing the “normal person” vibes.

Strike is a slow-moving caper about a lovable curmudgeon that goes down particularly well on a bleak winter night at the end of another testing year. Forget boy wizards and their broomsticks. Strike: Troubled Blood delivered real escapism in magical quantities.

It all galloped along with gusto and noir-ish charm. Cormoran Strike might not be Britain’s Favourite Detective yet but he could enter the frame in future.

Burke gets the mix of rumpled magnetism and between-the-cracks soulfulness absolutely right. Despite the guts and gore, catching up with him for his latest excursion was as comfortable as slipping on your favourite tatty slippers.

The new series of Strike, The Silkworm, is more complex and gory than The Cuckoo’s Calling.