Karen Pirie season 2 cast as ITV detective drama returns with Outlander's Lauren Lyle

Karen Pirie is making a comeback to our screens for a second series of the ITV detective drama, welcoming several fresh faces to the cast.

The show initially premiered in 2022, featuring Outlander star Lauren Lyle as the intrepid Scottish detective Karen Pirie.

Drawing inspiration from Val McDermid's second Inspector Karen Pirie novel, A Darker Domain, the upcoming series will unfold across three episodes.

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The official synopsis reveals: "After her bittersweet success in series one, Karen has been promoted to Detective Inspector and seemingly given the authority she has long been fighting for.

"Just as she's getting into the swing of her powerful new role, she is assigned an infamous unsolved case that will put her under intense scrutiny; from her boss, from the media, and ultimately, from sinister forces that would rather the past stayed in the past," reports the Express.

Karen Pirie series two cast:

• Lauren Lyle (Outlander) as Karen Pirie
• Chris Jenks (Sex Education) as DC Jason ‘Mint’ Murray
• Zach Wyatt (Timestalker) as DS Phil Parhatka
• Steve John Shepherd (EastEnders) as DCS LEes
• Emer Kenny (EastEnders) as River Wilde
• Rakhee Thakrar (Sex Education) as Bel Richmond
• Saskia Ashdown (Six Four) joins as newcomer DC Isla Stark
• James Cosmo (Braveheart) as Sir Broderick Grant, the father of victim Catriona
• Frances Tomelty (Inspector Morse) as Broderick’s ex-wife Mary
• John Michie (Holby City) as Fergus Sinclair, the father of Catriona’s son Adam
• Julia Brown (World on Fire) as Catriona Grant
• Mark Rowley (One Day) as Mick
• Kat Ronney (Dinosaur) as Bonnie
• Conor Berry (Schemers) as Andy
• Stuart Campbell (The Winter King) as Kevin

The cast also includes Jamie Michie, Madeleine Worrall, Jack Stewart, Thoren Ferguson, and Helen Katamba.

The historical case at the heart of series two centres on the 1984 abduction of wealthy oil heiress Catriona Grant and her two-year-old son Adam.

The pair were snatched at gunpoint outside a chip shop in Fife and vanished without trace, despite widespread media coverage.

When human remains surface with connections to the original abduction - the first breakthrough in decades - Karen and her colleagues face one of their most daunting investigations yet.

"As Karen delves deeper into what happened in the autumn of 1984, political grudges and painful secrets reveal themselves, and it soon becomes clear... the past is far from dead," the synopsis hints.

Karen Pirie season 2 will air on Sunday, July 20, with the first episode premiering at 8pm on ITV1.