Trueman and Riley is a British radio drama series written by Brian B. Thompson and produced by Toby Swift. It stars Robert Daws and Duncan Preston as a pair of ill-matched, middle-aged, marginalised Leeds detectives who are consigned to work on cases deemed too trivial for their more high-powered colleagues.
Originally named Trueman it began life as a BBC Radio 4Afternoon Play on 17 April 2002 with Detective Inspector Trueman being called back to work after a nervous breakdown in order to solve a high profile murder case, backed up by Detective Sgt. Riley (Duncan Preston). That play was repeated, followed by three new plays in July 2005.
Renamed Trueman and Riley for a relaunch on BBC7 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra) in March 2007, and relocated from Hull to Leeds, the new series saw the pair attempt to solve slightly more everyday crimes, and frequently disagreeing about the best way to proceed. The two men both complement and irritate each other, but each recognizes that he depends on the other. Trueman seems to have no family or friends, while Riley has grandchildren. At the end of series 3 Trueman begins a relationship with the widow of a man whose death he investigated as a cold case.
The most recent series was broadcast in 2012 on BBC Radio 4 Extra. It was selected as BBC Drama Download of the Week and also featured on the Danny Baker Show (BBC Radio 5 Live), where Riley was heard discussing the merits of red or brown sauce during the Sausage Sandwich Game.
Trueman — Was the murder of a student a drug wars killing, or are more sinister forces at work?
Angel Heights — A young stable jockey has been killed by a horse in what appears to have been an accident.
The Road to Hull — Trueman and Riley are unhappy at the opening of Club Paradiso, a new lap dancing club in Hull.
High Windows — A film crew are in Hull, making a bio-pic of Philip Larkin, but they are being plagued by pranks and petty thefts.
Series 1
Vanished - A husband is reported missing, but the wife is not who she claims to be.
Story - A reporter for an online news service falls from a building. Or was she pushed?
Bond - An item of James Bond movie memorabilia is stolen at a fan convention. As usual nobody is who they seem.
Speed - Riley gets a speeding ticket and is obliged to attend a "speed awareness" class, where he spots an ex-con who he thinks is back on his old games.
Series 2
For the first two episodes of Series 2 in March 2009, Trueman and Riley are exiled to "Student Crime Prevention" at the University. The reason for their exile is not explained.
The Road to Nowhere - Student houses along one street are being burgled, but there is a connection to a trip to exotic places.
The Three Degrees - Three former students re-unite in their old digs, but one has to be fished out of a canal. He claims he fell in, but the CCTV says otherwise.
A Man's World - Items are being stolen from mothers on a maternity ward. Suspicion is cast on a man working in a woman's profession - midwifery.
The Other Chic - Arson and theft in the lingerie industry.
Love Bytes - A woman is missing, and online role-playing games are involved.
Series 3
Every dog has his day - A "murder", but the victim is a dog.
Angel Delight - A robbery at a burlesque club.
Family Business - A man goes missing after winning "98 grand" from a bookmaker.
Green Machine - An environmental activist is knocked off his bicycle.
Home Truths - Trueman investigates an "accidental" death from 14 years ago. Riley gets into social media as a 14-year-old to "safeguard" his granddaughter.
The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins is a 19th-century British epistolary novel. It is an early example of the modern detective novel, and established many of the ground rules of the modern genre. The story was serialised in Charles Dickens’s magazine All the Year Round. Collins adapted The Moonstone for the stage in 1877.
Peter William Sutcliffe, also known as Peter Coonan and dubbed in press reports as the Yorkshire Ripper was an English serial killer who was convicted of murdering thirteen women and attempting to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. He was sentenced to twenty concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. Two of Sutcliffe's murders took place in Manchester; all the others were in West Yorkshire.
Jonathan Creek is a long-running British mystery crime drama series produced by the BBC and written by David Renwick. It stars Alan Davies as the titular character, who works as a creative consultant to a stage magician while also solving seemingly supernatural mysteries through his talent for logical deduction and his understanding of illusions.
Farewell, My Lovely is a novel by Raymond Chandler, published in 1940, the second novel he wrote featuring the Los Angeles private eye Philip Marlowe. It was adapted for the screen three times and was also adapted for the stage and radio.
"The Adventure of Silver Blaze", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is the first from the 12 in the cycle collected as The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. It was first published in The Strand Magazine in December 1892.
Roberta Williams' Laura Bow in The Dagger of Amon Ra is a computer game published by Sierra On-Line in 1992. The game is the second and final installment in The Laura Bow Mysteries line of adventure games, the first of which was The Colonel's Bequest. Unlike the first game, it was not written or designed by Roberta Williams, but she was a creative consultant on the project. It uses 8-bit color and a point-and-click interface. The CD-ROM version included voice acting. The Dagger of Amon Ra was developed using Sierra's Creative Interpreter (SCI1.1). It is a spiritual sequel to the original game, contains the same elements and themes as the first, and is a much more traditional point-and-click game. It was re-released in 2017 on GOG.com with modern Windows support.
Peter Levy is a BBC television and occasional radio presenter on BBC Radio Humberside. He previously worked in commercial radio.
Hickory Dickory Dock is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 31 October 1955 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in November of the same year under the title of Hickory Dickory Death. The UK edition retailed at ten shillings and sixpence (10/6) and the US edition at $3.00. It features her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The novel is notable for featuring Poirot's efficient secretary, Miss Felicity Lemon, who had previously appeared only in the Poirot short stories.
Duncan Preston is an English actor. He is known for his appearances in television productions written by Victoria Wood, including his role in the soap opera parody sketches Acorn Antiques and as Stan in the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000). He reprised his role of Clifford in Acorn Antiques: The Musical! in 2005. His other television roles include DS Todd in the soap opera EastEnders (1987), Jonathan Haslam in the sitcom Surgical Spirit (1989–1995); and Doug Potts in the soap opera Emmerdale.
Neil Dudgeon is an English actor who, since 2010, has played DCI John Barnaby in the ITV drama series Midsomer Murders. He replaced John Nettles in the lead role, in 2011.
Tristan John Gemmill is an English actor, most notable for his roles as Dr Adam Trueman on Casualty, and Robert Preston in Coronation Street. He was educated at Holmewood House School, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, up to the age of 13. He then won an Academic Scholarship to Tonbridge School.
Robert Daws is an English actor, and crime fiction author. He is best known for his television roles, including Tuppy Glossop in Jeeves and Wooster (1990-93), gruff cricketer Roger Dervish in the comedy Outside Edge (1994-96), mini-cab firm owner Sam in the sitcom Roger Roger (1996-2003), and East Yorkshire GP Dr Gordon Ormerod in the period medical drama The Royal (2003-11).
Brian B. Thompson is a BAFTA-nominated British television, theatre and radio writer whose work includes Byker Grove, Grafters, The Bill and Coronation Street. He also created the detective series Trueman and Riley, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra from 2002 to 2012. Brian co-created the regional soap Quayside for Tyne Tees TV, and worked on the first series of Revelations for Granada Television. Theatre includes Derby Day produced by Yorkshire Theatre Company. Thompson has also written a number of radio plays including Soap Gets in Your Eyes and Full English.
Max Carrados is a fictional blind detective in a series of mystery stories and books by Ernest Bramah, first published in 1914. The Max Carrados stories appeared alongside Sherlock Holmes stories in the Strand Magazine. Bramah was often billed above Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Carrados stories frequently outsold the Holmes stories at the time, even if they failed to achieve the same longevity.
Lindsay Jo Rimer was a thirteen-year-old British girl from Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, who was murdered. She was last seen alive buying cornflakes at a SPAR shop on Crown Street in Hebden Bridge on 7 November 1994, and her body was found about a mile away in the Rochdale Canal which passes through the town on 12 April 1995. Despite repeated appeals for information by police, her murder remains unsolved.
Toby Swift is a radio drama director and producer for BBC Radio. His numerous credits, from 1999 to 2011, include the crime dramas The Recall Man and Trueman and Riley. He also directs contemporary and periodic radio dramas.
Father Brown is a cosy mystery detective period comedy drama television series loosely based on the Father Brown short stories by G. K. Chesterton, starring Mark Williams as the crime-solving Roman Catholic priest. Broadcast began on BBC One on 14 January 2013. In April 2023 the BBC confirmed that filming had begun on an 11th series, for broadcast in early 2024. They also confirmed the return of Lorna Watson as Sister Boniface.
SS-GB is a 2017 British drama series produced for the BBC and based on the 1978 novel of the same name by Len Deighton. It is set in a 1941 alternative timeline in which the United Kingdom is occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Ann Heron was a British woman who was murdered on 3 August 1990 at her home in Darlington, County Durham, by an unidentified killer. The case was heavily featured in British media as well as on the BBC programme Crimewatch in October 1990, but her murder remains unsolved.
Chris Clark is a British amateur crime writer who writes chiefly about serial killers and their supposed links to unsolved crimes. He is a retired police intelligence officer who worked in the King's Lynn area for Norfolk Police, although his career was somewhat unsuccessful and he had three applications to join the new National Criminal Intelligence Service rejected in 1993, with the commanding officers unimpressed by his record and applications. In 2022, his book Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders, which was jointly written with journalist Tim Tate and alleged links between Peter Sutcliffe and unsolved murders, was made into an ITV prime-time documentary series of the same name.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United Kingdom 
