Acclaimed crime drama The Tower is back for a third series

He admits that if ITV1 had stopped after the first run, which he adapted from Kate London’s novel Post Mortem, he would have blamed himself.

Speaking ahead of the second series, he said: “When I was sent Kate London’s novels in the summer of 2019, I was living in Los Angeles but looking for stories that might bring me closer to home. I read all three novels in one weekend and thought, in my gloomy way: I’ll have to be completely incompetent if I can’t get all three books on screen.”

He added: “This isn’t just false modesty: Kate’s novels are a gift to any adaptor. They’re packed with complicated, conflicted and funny characters; they tell authentically dramatic – never hyper-dramatic – stories, dripping with detail; and they fiercely challenge preconceptions, they make you hesitate and think.

“Kate has always said that she’s telling stories about people, not sending messages. That’s certainly true but what I have found in adapting the books, some eight or nine years after they were written, is that they have uncannily captured ‘today’, they zoom in on the issues we care about most and, again, they make us think.”

It’s not just the source material that had made The Tower a hit though – there’s also the great cast, headed by Game of Thrones star Gemma Whelan as DS Sarah Collins.

The current run, which is based on the novel Gallowstree Lane, picks up two years after the second

series.

This time, Sarah is looking into the brutal stabbing of a teenager, but the case is made more complicated when it turns out there’s a conflict with a covert operation being led by Kieran Shaw (Emmett J Scanlan) – and that her old partner Steve Bradshaw (Jimmy Akingbola) is working undercover as part of the investigation.

Meanwhile, Lizzie Adama (Tahirah Sharif, who picked up a Bafta nomination for her role) is back at Farlow and has been promoted to detective but is finding it difficult to balance the demands of the job with her family life – and that might only get tougher when her path crosses with Kieran’s.

It’s set to be tense, but the good news is that the current series is showing across four consecutive evenings, meaning we won’t have to wait long to find out what happens.

In tomorrow’s episode, the death of working girl Lexi sends shock waves through Sarah’s investigation and Operation Perseus.

Kieran faces an angry Lizzie, who thinks he should share information, but he fears that would put Steve in danger.

But then Kieran’s estranged wife contacts Sarah and says she has information about the Portland Tower case, which gave the series its name.

However, the question remains – will be there be a fourth season of The Tower? Well, Patrick did say: “I’ve read… Kate’s fourth novel: The Misper. It’s brilliant. I’ll have to be completely incompetent if I can’t, etc. etc.”