Line of Duty returns

Bent coppers beware – Ted Hastings and the team are coming back for a seventh series of the BBC hit drama

Just when it seemed the corruption-hunters of AC-12 had put away their warrant cards for good, along comes news that Line of Duty is going to be back on, well, duty.

A seventh series is in the works and leads Vicky McClure, Martin Compston and Adrian Dunbar are signed to return as the detectives trying to root out bent coppers.

The BBC drama, a big hit both sides of the Atlantic with fans including Stephen King, ended in May 2021. The finale, watched by 12.8million fans, had the distinction of being the most watched episode of any drama (excluding soaps) since 2002, when modern multi-viewing records started.

So good was the show that in 2023 I wrote a book about it – The Real Ted Hastings: The True Story of the Copper at the Heart of Line of Duty.

At the time, the publishers (Mardle Books) and myself hoped sales would skyrocket when the new seventh series came along – only for showrunner Jed Mercurio and his team to put Line of Duty into instant hibernation.

Anyway, who cares about book sales? Line of Duty is back at last for another six episodes and that news will have fans cheering.

And there is certainly unfinished business in the Line of Duty Universe. Something of a consensus emerged after Series 6 that the finale was lacklustre, as dim-bulb Chief Superintendent Ian Buckells emerged as the senior figure running the conspiracy.

The sense of letdown was probably because viewers had expected a Moriarty-type mastermind to be the Big Bad ’un, whereas Buckells was a charisma-free flunky.

My own feeling was that Buckells being exposed as the fourth man in ‘H’ quartet touched on a truth about the nature of corruption.

Bent coppers, politicians etc are not usually the most gifted people around. They are often greedy wannabes – lazy, lacking in self-esteem, unable to resist taking a shortcut to ‘success’.

This was the genius of the series (and the theme of my book). Line of Duty was a brilliant fusion of high-octance entertainment based on real life. All of instances of corruption and bent coppering featured were drawn from headline cases in modern Britain.

Buckells may have been outed, but there was no victory lap for AC-12’s Ted Hastings (Dunbar), Kate Fleming (McClure) and Steve Arnott (Compston). Their nemesis Chief Constable Philip Osbourne hushed up Buckells’ wrongdoing and dismantled AC-12.

The department’s been replaced by an Inspectorate of Police Standards in the new series. This will be investigating an inspector accused of being a sexual predator…

Filming starts next year.

Oh, if you want a copy of the book, it’s available here, here and here.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey, you didn’t expect me to pass up the chance to plug it, did you?

My next two books

I must plead guilty to being absent without leave here on Substack recently.

The reason is that this year I’ve signed contracts to write two books.

I’ve just handed in the manuscript, photos and map for my next non-fiction crime book, which will be published in August/September 2026.

To be honest, I found it difficult to combine writing, researching, fact-checking and editing the book in addition to composing worthwhile posts here. Hence, my hiatus.

As I get on with my other book, about some 1960s gangsters – to be published in March 2027 – I hope to be on the beat here more frequently.

I’ll be forthcoming about both projects soon.