Patience Press Pack

Series Synopsis

Patience Evans is a young civilian worker in the Police Criminal Records Office. She lives a quiet life with her god-father, Douglas, in York in northern England.  Patience is autistic, which means she experiences the world through her own unique perspective—one that doesn’t always align with how others might see or navigate it. Patience loves a puzzle and her ability to untangle tricky cases soon brings her to the attention of top crime fighting officer DI Bea Metcalf. 

When a seemingly routine investigation into a suspected suicide crosses Patience’s desk she remembers connections to a series of similar cases in the past and soon the investigation takes on international dimensions and involves more unexplained deaths. With Patience’s help the case is solved, and DI Bea Metcalf is grateful for her contribution and recognises her potential and talents.

The relationship between Bea and Patience is a mutually beneficial one. Bea takes Patience under her wing and pushes to get her made into an official Civilian Investigative Officer.  At times however Patience feels overwhelmed and out of her depth and retreats into her safe space. She seeks advice from her Autism support group who meet regularly to discuss how to adapt in a neurotypical world. As the series progresses, we learn more about Patience’s early life and how she was abandoned by her mother and brought up by her father, George, who was a police officer himself.  When he dies, she is taken into the care of a god father, Douglas, who is very protective of her and really understands Patience. She grows to like and admire Bea and really wants to help the police.

DI Bea Metcalf is a brilliant but unconventional cop. Beatrice, or Bea to her friends, loves her job, and she boasts the best clear-up rate in the county. Bea is curious, instinctive, and empathetic. Bea is divorced with a young son, Alfie, who she worries about constantly. As she grows closer to Patience, professionally and personally, Bea will be forced to reassess everything in her life, from her approach to Police work to Alfie’s particular needs. 

The cases the police solve with the help of Patience are baffling and unusual and set in extraordinary places around York, they include the case of a locked room with a dead man inside, a drowning in a museum with no water, and a ‘corpse’ that walks off a mortuary slab.

Patience is a thrilling, crime drama with neurodiversity at its heart. Patience learns a lot about the world from Bea this series, we also see Bea learn a lot from Patience, and these two come together to make the perfect combination in friendship and solving crime.