Strike: The Ink Black Heart | Preview (BBC One)

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger are returning for the next instalment of Strike - The Ink Black Heart, the sixth story of the BBC’s hit crime drama in co-production with HBO and Warner Bros. Discovery and based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling crime novels written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Burke (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, The Souvenir) as Cormoran Strike and Grainger (The Capture, Animals) as Robin Ellacott lead a cast of acclaimed British actors including David Westhead (Enola Holmes 2, Bodyguard), Christian McKay (Rivals, Dangerous Liaisons), Emma Fielding (Sanditon, Van der Valk), Tupele Dorgu (The Full Monty, Ridley) and James Nelson-Joyce (Time, Industry) amongst others.

Ruth Sheen (Unforgotten, It’s A Sin) will return as Pat, Strike’s office manager, alongside fellow returning cast members Jack Greenlees (The Trial of Cristine Keeler, Payback) as Sam Barclay, Natasha O’Keeffe (Peaky Blinders, The Wheel of Time) as Charlotte, and Caitlin Innes Edwards (Hanna, Black Mirror: Smithereens) as Ilsa.

When frantic, dishevelled Edie Ledwell appears in the office begging to speak to her, private detective Robin Ellacott doesn't know quite what to make of the situation. The co-creator of a popular cartoon, The Ink Black Heart, Edie is being persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie. Edie is desperate to uncover Anomie's true identity.

Robin decides that the agency can't help with this - and thinks nothing more of it until a few days later, when she reads the shocking news that Edie has been tasered and then murdered in Highgate Cemetery, the location of The Ink Black Heart.

Robin and her business partner Cormoran Strike become drawn into the quest to uncover Anomie's true identity. But with a complex web of online aliases, business interests and family conflicts to navigate, Strike and Robin find themselves embroiled in a case that stretches them to their limit.

Strike is one of the UK's most watched dramas, with the most recent instalment – Troubled Blood – averaging 8.4 million viewers across its run in 2022 (28-day figures).

Sue Tully returns to direct Strike – The Ink Black Heart, her third time working on Strike. Her credits include Strike – Troubled Blood, Too Close, Strike - Lethal White, Line of Duty, Tin Star, The A Word and The Musketeers.

Strike – The Ink Black Heart is adapted for the screen by writer Tom Edge (Vigil, You Don’t Know Me) who also adapted previous Strike instalments Troubled Blood, The Silkworm, Career of Evil and Lethal White.

All seven Strike novels topped the national and international bestseller lists and the series has sold in total more than 20 million copies worldwide across all editions. Troubled Blood won the 2021 British Book Award for Book of the Year: Crime and Fiction. The books are published in more than 50 countries across the globe and to date have been translated into 43 languages.

Strike returns Monday 16th December at 9pm on BBC One.