New crime thriller series Wolf introduces viewers to Detective Inspector Jack Caffery

The death of Mo Hayder in 2021 robbed the crime world of one of its most unique – if grisly – talents.

She’d been battling motor neurone disease for around 18 months before it finally took her life; luckily for us she left behind a legacy of bestselling books that readers will still be diving into headfirst for many years to come.

The real Hayder, however, remains a rather enigmatic figure who could be described as hiding behind several personas.

A self-confessed wild child, she was born Clare Damaris Bastin and left school at 15. Under the name Candy Davis she had spells as a model and actress before emigrating to Tokyo. While working as a hostess in one of the city’s nightclubs she witnessed three sudden deaths shortly after a friend was murdered and another was raped.

It was these tragedies that perhaps led her to write her first novel, Birdman, which was published in 2000. She described it as a response to her “compulsive need to wriggle my toes in life’s gutters”; readers couldn’t get enough of its main protagonist, troubled Detective Inspector Jack Caffery.

Hayder wrote a dozen novels in total (two published posthumously under yet another name, Theo Clare), with seven of them featuring Caffery. Their popularity means it’s a surprise that it’s taken so long for one of them to be turned into a TV series – but it’s been well worth the wait.

Hartswood Films, the production company run by screenwriter Steven Moffat and his wife Sue Vertue, has a great track record – Sherlock, The Control Room and Dracula are just some of its successes – so it would seem that Caffery is in safe hands.

Ukweli Roach, recently seen in the BBC broadcast of Annika (the second run of which is heading to Alibi next month), takes the lead role in a six-part thriller written by Megan Gallagher and based on Wolf, the final novel in the Caffery series.

“I’m honoured to be taking on the role of Jack Caffrey,” claims Roach. “Megan Gallagher has brought Mo Hayder’s dark storylines into focus in a way that will be challenging, but also every actor’s dream.”

When we first meet the detective, he remains haunted by the idea that his brother, who was murdered in the 1990s at the age of 10, was the victim of a neighbour. He’s spent the intervening years trying to right wrongs committed by others, but at a huge personal cost.

Now his path is about to cross that of the wealthy Anchor-Ferrers family, who are trapped in their own nightmare – they have become the victims of a house invasion, and are pawns in a psychopath’s terrifying game.

Juliet Stevenson, Owen Teale, Sian Reese-Williams, Sacha Dhawan and Iwan Rheon are among the impressive supporting cast.

Had she been around to watch the programme, Hayder would surely have approved of such luminaries bringing her characters and plot to light. Here’s hoping it won’t be the last time we see them on the small screen – Hayder’s world may be a very dark one, but it’s never less than fascinating and there’s still a wealth of material to work with.