Judgement Day

Murder comes close to home for Burke in the worst possible way. His elderly father, Andrew, dies and the first verdict is liver failure, which everyone accepts until the real cause surfaces. Andrew Burke died of a heroin overdose, which is not how a man in his pensioners' club is supposed to go. That is somebody else's work, and Burke, who is supposed to step back from a case this close, steps in anyway. The regulations say he should not touch it. The grief says otherwise.

Then another member of the pensioners' club dies, and coincidence stops being a comfortable word. A savings plan with a great deal of money attached sits at the centre of it all, and Burke has to weigh the respectable faces around the club's table as possible murderers while managing a brother, John, who is family in name only. The respectable pensioners make the worst kind of suspects, because no one wants them to be guilty. Every conversation with John is a small negotiation, and the kindnesses from the club read differently once the second death lands.

Glenn Chandler and Mike Cullen wrote it, Patrick Harkins directed. Alex Norton's Burke carries it, with Blythe Duff's DS Jackie Reid, John Michie's DI Robbie Ross and Colin McCredie's DC Stuart Fraser. Ewan Stewart is John Burke, Nicola Grier is Dr Marion Vaughn, James Grant is Tom Gardner, James Martin is Billy Watson, Una McLean is Theresa Braithwaite and George Drennan is Dr Graham Fletcher.

A murder in the family is a gift to a detective show, and this one uses it properly: the professional and the personal fighting for the same chair. The club members are sketched with a light hand, each one a little too helpful. And the ending, without giving anything away, does not let Burke off easily. Grief makes for a messy investigator, and the show knows it.