Clive Owen plays Stephen Crane – a sharp, devious young business analyst in the City – who is approached by his friend Gavin Nichols (Matthew Marsh) to use his financial skills to help save Douglas Motors – a family-owned sports car company in the Midlands – from ruin following a devastating fire at their factory.
Crane attempts to save Douglas Motors by stealing £500,000 pounds from his boss, vicious City queen James Blake (Leslie Phillips), in an insider trading scam with his girlfriend Jo (Susannah Harker), but is caught and loses his job.
Through Nichols – who is the son-in-law of managing director Robert Douglas (Benjamin Whitrow) – Crane becomes involved with the Douglas family and their business associates, falls in love, is dragged into a blistering and adulterous marriage break-up, and makes some faithful new friends – and some dangerous new enemies.
It is eventually revealed that Stephen Crane is, in reality, called Derek Love (known to his friends as Dex) and the death of the real Stephen Crane threatens to blow Dex’s cover.
As the second series begins, we find Love just being released after serving a six-month prison sentence. He has no money, no home, no job and absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain. Gone are the flash suits, the troubles of the ailing car company, the city slicker lifestyle and – thank heavens – the annoying “Crane’s law rule number one” utterances.
His girlfriend Jo has returned from her travels abroad with her baby son and now becomes his obsession.
Both Piers Garfield Ward (Simon Shepherd) and Love were part of her past and Jo makes it quite clear that neither of them has any place in her future (which – as it turns out – is ridiculously short as she falls to her death at the end of the first episode).
Love then sets about helping Piers, who has inherited a stately home and with it, a financial nightmare.
Watch out for Christopher Eccleston in one of his first television roles, featured as a prisoner in the opening episode of series two.
Stephen Crane/Derek ‘Dex’ Love
Clive Owen Piers Garfield-Ward
Simon Shepherd Jo Franklyn
Susannah Harker James Xavier Blake
Leslie Phillips Thomas (Tom) Franklyn
Peter Vaughan Willy Stebbings
Ralph Riach Robert Douglas
Benjamin Whitrow Penny Nichols
Caroline Langrishe Victoria Douglas
Lynsey Baxter Gavin Nichols
Matthew Marsh Markus Warton
Stephen Tompkinson Colin Morris
Robert Glenister Lunchbox
Cliff Parisi Dink
Andy Linden Gerald
Paul Barber Lorraine
Maureen Glackin
Episodes
Weapons Fall from the Wall | Killing Floor | Hazard | Trust | Pretenders | Possessions | Faith | Lies | Wreckage | Sanctuary | History | Temptation | Love || Jo | Ashes | Secrets |Remembrance | Blood | Fall | Sacrifice
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Through Nichols – who is the son-in-law of managing director Robert Douglas (Benjamin Whitrow) – Crane becomes involved with the Douglas family and their business associates, falls in love, is dragged into a blistering and adulterous marriage break-up, and makes some faithful new friends – and some dangerous new enemies.
Both Piers Garfield Ward (Simon Shepherd) and Love were part of her past and Jo makes it quite clear that neither of them has any place in her future (which – as it turns out – is ridiculously short as she falls to her death at the end of the first episode).
