realy enjoyed it...martin compston is a brilliant actor....wouldn't the rest of his family be arrested for aiding and abetting, they were to blame too

Really enjoyed it, brilliant acting all round !!!

He confessed to everything too easily after being so cocky about the other murders. What proof did they really have that it was him who uses the pound notes at the pub. Did his father really help him bury the body?

I enjoyed it too. The pace was slow and easy.

Did he confess because he didn't want his father implicated in the murders, once he saw him in the cell?

I thought it was pretty plain that, in the story as dramatised, he confessed as he didn't want anyone sharing his moment in the spotlight aka fame and notoriety. Of course the actual events may well have happened somewhat differently (dramatic licence and all that)..

I think he confessed because he wanted all "the glory" and he didn't want his father to share it. I don't think he cared about protecting his father because it was all about his narcissism. The acting was brilliant, particularly Martin Compston.

I've got the runs and had to go in the last part of this! I went to the toilet when he was having a smoke with Muncie and came back in the room when Muncie was on the steps talking to the crowd. What did I miss?

Have to agree Martin Compston is a fantastic actor.

I read that he was prosecuted for 8 murders simultaneously rather than a single specimen charge as we saw with Christie. Perhaps they do things differently in Scotland?

I thought the actor playing Muncie mumbled and slurred quite a bit, I struggled with some lines, praise be for subtitles, whereas the guy playing Manuel was spot on, good WoS accent and good diction.

Why did Manuel lie about the huge risk he took of going back to the Smart's house not once, but twice ?

It's well known he went back to feed the family cat, was he frightened that this tiny display of goodness, a spark of humanity, might go against his gangster image ?

Were the banknotes the only evidence against him for 8 murders ? either he indeed was a master criminal, or the Lanarkshire police force were fairly inept, sadly I think we know the answer to that, thank God for police informants.

Really enjoyed this 3 parter. I thought Martin C played him brilliantly. Having read since about Peter Manuel, even the height appeared to be right (the real life killer was only 5ft4).

If he has played him right, Peter Manuel is the most extraordinary person I've heard of, breathtaking in arrogance. Seriously unhinged.

Martin Compston (still think of him as Steve from Line of Duty) is good at playing weirdos. He's been in the ice cream girls as a pervy teacher recently too.

I think they had his finger prints from the notes. I'm sure there was a full page of them when the police woman was interviewing him.

What was the water on the floor near the can of food that Muncie looked at

Really enjoyed this and glad he was hanged. I agree about Martin Compston, brilliant actor.

I think it was the juice from a tin of pears he opened.

As if Manuel would have spared the young boy rather than be seem as a child killer, like Christie before him killing a child was of no more consequence than killing a fly.

The complicity of his father and sister is troubling, did they know or suspect and yet still gave him alibis ?

It's also frightening the ease by which guns were obtained by ordinary neds in post war Scotland.

The Smarts bungalow was on my old paper round, used to get the creeps everytime I was near it. Martin Compston played Manuel very well

j

I think that is a tad unfair. Muncie was dogged in his pursuit of Manuel and also he had an excellent record in solving other murders according to the blurb at the end.

Yes, he was the most famous detective in Scotland but having read about him, it seems his career ended in near ignominy with a possible false sentencing, although that isn't proven However, this was his last case and he had brought 50 murderers to justice.

Although there is dramatic licence and as mentioned, the original houses were not used (and quite right too), I was a little annoyed at the portrayal of the Burnside murders - the two Watt sisters and the teenage daughter. It showed Manuel breaking into a house opposite to spy on the house. I've checked out that street on Street View and there are no houses opposite, just shrubbery. I doubt they would have knocked them down in the intervening years with the other side of the road kept as it was.

I think most of it was filmed in Ayrshire. In the first episode, on the street that housed Uddingston Police station, there was an old sign clearly visible showing the miles to nearby Beith and Dalry. Does anyone know where the Manuel house, the one in the drama, is?

I have a wee connection to the case. My late Mum knew one of the victims, Isabelle Cooke.

I agree about the original houses not being used, you know how ghoulish people can be, I wonder if the grisly history of the house is known to the current occupiers though ?

The external shots for Lanarkshire Police Headquarters and Airdrie Sheriff Court, were filmed in Lanark. I think the location they used for the Manuel house is in Dunlop.

Peter Manuel is an incredibly interesting character, read up about him if you are interested in this drama. A real 1 in a million type of person, his audacity and arrogance is breathtaking. In a way I wish he was spared death as he'd make a great case study for some shrink.

They touched on this at the end but he actually sacked his defence team some way into his final trial when he could sense they were losing the battle. He went on to defend himself like he had done successfully before.

Ted Bundy did the same thing.

He went to the gallows without seeming to be too bothered about it. I remember reading that he actually ran out to the hangman's noose.