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Neil Cross, writer on where he's taken the character of Luther

DCI John Luther's life is never what you'd call straightforward. But at the end of series one, we left him in a real mess.

His adored wife, Zoe, was dead at the hands of his best friend, poor tormented DCI Ian Reed. The gun that killed Reed was still smoking in the hands of Alice Morgan – a psychopath who may be Luther's worst enemy. Or who may be, y'know – something else entirely. Luther was bleeding. The police were on their way. So what now?

Obviously, I can't tell you how we get Luther out of that particular predicament; but I can tell you it wasn't the way I was planning to do it when we faded out to the peerless sound of Nina Simone pleading not to be misunderstood.

There were many reasons for this, but the most significant was that the ´óÏó´«Ã½ wanted to free me up to tell bigger stories over a wider canvas.

So that's what we've got in Luther season two, bigger stories on a wider canvas. We've got some familiar faces and some new faces. We've got twists and turns. We've got bloodcurdling events on the streets of London. We've got fear and mayhem on a city-wide scale. We've got killers who'll make you want to check the doors and windows are locked before you go to bed at night.

And at the heart of it all, we've got DCI John Luther – a man in ruins, but with a heart the size of the moon. Bloodied and battered, but somehow still standing. And still doing what he can.