Prayer of the Bone is a Coastal/ BBC America co-production and was filmed in and around Austin and La Grange, Texas (USA) and was first transmitted on ITV1 (UK) on Monday 7 January 2008 at 9:00pm.

Robson Green goes stateside for a special feature-length episode of Wire in the Blood, filmed in the USA.

Dr Tony Hill finds himself a fish out of water when he’s invited to Texas as an expert witness in a case of an American man accused of brutally slaughtering his wife and two young children. Known drug addict and Iraq combat veteran, Darius Grady, has confessed to the crimes but his defence team claim that his traumatic experiences in war have left him with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He killed his family while hallucinating – a mitigating factor that should spare him the death penalty.

The prosecution want Tony to help them prove that Darius’s apparent PTSD is a fraud, especially in light of a rape he committed while stationed in the UK – a crime for which Tony interviewed him before he escaped justice when the US Air Force whisked him home.

Alone in a strange country, surrounded by hostile lawyers and police, Tony finds himself at the centre of a maelstrom of competing legal and political interests. He’s insulted, threatened, framed and physically attacked. Meanwhile, his doubts grow about the case. Nobody is quite what they seem and everyone has a vested interest in Darius. Everyone, that is, exept Darius himself, who seems peculiarly determined to die.

As the trial proceeds, Tony’s illicit investigation uncovers drugs scams and infidelity, But only when Tony questions all of his own assumptions does he start to uncover the tragic truth behind what really went on the night Darius’s family was murdered.