BBC Strike series 5 recap ahead of new episodes The Ink Black Heart

BBC crime drama Strike is back for a sixth series this Christmas and will follow private detectives Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot as they try and solve yet another mystery. The detective duo were last on our screens in Christmas 2022 for Strike: Troubled Blood, which became one of the UK's most watched dramas, averaging 8.4 million viewers across its run in 2022.

Each series follows one of the books in the Cormoran Strike series by JK Rowling, written under the pen name Robert Galbraith. The new series of Strike is based on the sixth novel in the series, The Ink Black Heart, which sees Strike and Robin try to solve the mystery of the death of a popular cartoonist, Edie Ledwell.

With there being two years since Strike was last on our screens, we have recapped everything you need to know ahead of the new episodes airing. You can find out more about the new series, here.

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Spoilers for the earlier series of Strike ahead. Series 1-5 are available on BBC iPlayer if you want to go back and watch them for yourselves.

What happened in the last series of Strike?

Strike: Troubled Blood follows private detectives Cormoran Strike (Tom Burke) and Robin Ellacott (Holliday Grainger) as they investigate a cold case. They set out to solve the disappearance of Margot Bamborough, a doctor who vanished in 1974.

After running into a number of red herrings, Strike and Robin discovered that Margot Bamborough was killed by a former nurse at her practice, Janice Beattie who is now living as Beth Spencer, after she suspected her, rightly, of being a serial poisoner. Cormoran himself was nearly killed during the investigation, after Janice sent him a box of poisoned chocolates for Christmas after he started to figure out that Beth Spencer was a false identity

Janice had tried the poisoned chocolates method with Doctor Margot, who was too suspicious to eat them. Instead, Janice poisoned a donut that the receptionist bought for the GP. She left work late, drugged, struggled with Janice before collapsing and being dragged to the Arthorns' flat.

Janice had bribed the drug addict living there to let her drug him and his family while she killed Margot. She put Margot's body in concrete and left it inside the Athorns' ottoman, where Robin would find it decades later.

The series ended with Janice facing trial. For the latest TV & Showbiz news, sign up to our newsletter

During the series, Cormoran's Aunt Joan, the woman who raised him following the death of his mother, died after battling a terminal illness. The series also saw the end of Robin's relationship with her husband Matt as their divorce was finalised.

It seemed like there might finally be some romance between the two detectives as the pair appeared to be close to kissing after Cormoran took Robin for some shopping and dinner. Instead, Strike hugged Robin and told her she was his best friend. Will series six see the duo finally end up together?