The fifth season of the crime drama spin-off focusing on an elite group of New York cops continues. When an out-of-town banker is found dead from a heroin overdose in this week’s instalment, the finger of suspicion points to an elite group of professional party people.

When Detectives Goren and Eames investigate the death of wealthy banker Russ Corbett, they are confused as to why he would have been in the cheap hotel room in which he was discovered. His wife, Monica, incoherent from drug-induced psychosis, is unable to offer many clues. At the morgue, the coroner reveals that Russ may have been a drug user. Eames also notices that the victim has neatly waxed eyebrows and a fake tan. “I doubt he picked up metrosexual grooming habits in Grand Rapids,” she remarks. Interviews with friends and family throw up more new information – Russ and his wife had been trying hard to break into the social scene.

After visiting the Corbetts’ house, which has been stripped of its furnishings and fixtures, Goren and Eames theorise that Russ and Monica were drugged by a gang of professional thieves. They trace the stolen goods to a backstreet, where Goren finds dried blood on the doorstep of an apartment. Inside, the flat has been completely gutted – clearly the work of the same thieves. It also emerges that Monica and Russ had been guests at a party held in the apartment earlier that week. After Goren looks around the kitchen and makes the grisly discovery of a severed head in thefridge, fingerprints put the detectives on the trail of a missing heiress, Hilary Marsden.

A meeting with Hilary’s sister leads the detectives to the offices of an exclusive party service that makes sure the right people are on the hottest guest lists in town. After talking with Bernard (Michael York, ‘Logan’s Run’, ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’), the head of the company, Goren notes that all of his assistants seem to have cloned their looks, right down to the shade of their blonde hair. Goren becomes even more suspicious when he notices that Bernard has a spray tan and perfect eyebrows. Bernard admits that he knew the Corbetts, but says that they were not of a high-enough calibre for his clutch of close friends. “They’re very polite, but they’re not our sort,” he says.

At Bernard’s office, Goren finds out where his assistants get their hair done, and a tip-off from a hairdresser leads the detectives straight to Hilary Marsden, who has also gone blonde. She says she ran away all those years ago to be with her soulmate, who she met while in Hong Kong. The significance of her occupation – a real estate agent – is not lost on Goren. “I just thought of the perfect cover-up for someone who is scouting victims for a gang of thieves,” he remarks, sarcastically. Old files have revealed numerous unsolved cases where well-to-do people, usually in New York on a temporary basis, have been murdered and had their homes cleaned out from top to bottom.

With no other suspects, Bernard and his bevy of beauties are blamed for the crimes. The only piece of the puzzle that does not seem to fit is that Wes Banyon, the man whose head was found in his own fridge, was not wealthy at all. Goren and Eames must find out why Wes was a target, and more inexplicably, what hold the aging Bernard has over his young female admirers. Has he really turned them into ruthless killers?

Tuesday 18th March at 11pm on five