Stone: The Complete Series 5-7

Hugo Speer stars as John Stone in series 5-7 of the gritty, fast-paced crime drama created by Danny Brocklehurst.

Manchester detective DCI Stone and his team are faced with 10 complex, morally challenging cases in this collection of hard-hitting radio dramas.

As series 5 opens, Stone is still reeling from the mishandled shooting of Callum Gartside, a gunman who had murdered his own family. With his personal life in tatters, he must find the strength to hold it together and do his job. In ‘Dirt’ by Martin Jameson, he investigates a body in a flooded gravel pit; in ‘Blood Money’ by Richard Monks, he looks into the hit-and-run killing of a cyclist; and in ‘A Cut Above’ by Marcia Layne, he looks into a suspected case of female genital mutilation. ‘Progress’, by Alex Ganley, finds him searching for the murderer of a garden centre owner; while ‘Broken’, by Vivienne Harvey, centres around a missing pregnant woman.

Series 6 includes ‘Disclosure’ by Richard Monks, ‘Wishing Well’ by Alex Ganley and Dan Allum, ‘Casualties’ by Martin Jameson and ‘Damage’ by Vivienne Harvey. In these four episodes, Stone unearths dark secrets following an arson attack on a school; struggles to find the truth about a dead body on an abandoned travellers’ site; hits an unexpected obstacle in a murder investigation; and goes undercover after a series of suspicious deaths among the homeless community.

Series 7 follows one case across 10 episodes, written by Martin Jameson, Richard Monks, Cath Staincliffe, Alex Ganley and Vivienne Harvey. After a fire at a hostel, a body is found – but who is he? Stone’s enquiries lead him to reexamine a murder investigation from 20 years before and uncover a web of lies and deceit that make him confront his past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.