Chasing Shadows   Starring: Reece Shearsmith, Alex Kingston, Noel Clarke, Alfie Field and Don Warrington Distributor: ITV Studios Global Entertainment RRP: £14.99 3711536303 5 037115 363039 Certificate: 15 Release Date: 29 September 2014

DS Sean Stone and Ruth Hattersley head up the Missing Persons unit that hunts serial killers. Sean is intense and socially awkward, a misfit who is happier dealing with data rather than people. His lack of people skills and forthright honesty make him some powerful enemies in the force, which is why he now finds himself exiled to Missing Persons. Sean’s new caseload is overwhelming - up to 300,000 people go missing in the UK each year - but his brilliant mind turns out to be perfectly adapted to his new role. Where others see a hopeless, ever-growing sea of lost faces, Sean spots patterns, that lead to victims... and their killers...

Chasing Shadows is a four-part ITV drama (originally broadcast between 4-24 September 2014), set in a missing persons unit that hunts serial killers. Reece Shearsmith plays DS Sean Stone and his partner, Ruth Hattersley is played by Alex Kingston, whilst Noel Clarke takes on the role of DI Carl Prior.

The series opens with our introduction to Sean. He's not really a people person, and how he even managed to rise through the ranks of the police force to DS is unclear. In fact when he makes a blunder during a televised press conference, I was left wondering what was going through his superior's mind. They must have known how inept he was in these sort of situations.

Put ignoring this minor plot point, Stone is moved over to the Missing Persons unit where his job is to prioritise his case load. Through the thousands of missing people he quickly starts to weed out those that are most likely in real trouble.

The first two episodes revolve around a missing teenage girl, who it soon becomes clear is one of a number of people that belongs to an online suicide forum. Several members of this group have vanished shortly before turning up dead, apparently ending their own lives. With time running out Stone and Hattersley must work out where she is and reunite her with her family.

The third and fourth episodes are concerned with an old missing persons case. A year ago a well respected lawyer vanished in mysterious circumstances. Not long after a taxi driver was arrested and confessed to the murder of several people who vanished in the same area. Is the lawyer also a victim of this killer? Or is he still alive, somewhere?

While Shearsmith, Kingston, Clarke and the great Don Warrington are wonderfully cast, oddly enough one of the most interesting characters is Adele Rivera (played by Myriam Acharki), Stone's cleaner. Stone is such a jumbled mess, and the interaction between him and Rivera was rather sweet. As the series goes on, the writers give Acharki some interesting scenes with Shearsmith and It was great to see that she'll be playing a much bigger role in the next series (if indeed a second series is commissioned).

This is an interesting series which I'm hoping will get at least another couple of series under its belt. There are no extras on the DVD.

8

Darren Rea