Kicking off the Doctor Who Main Range in 2018, Peter Davison reprises the Fifth Doctor in the cryptic space-age murder mystery, Kingdom of Lies.

On the planet Cicero Prime, the kingdom of Cardenas is divided, with the whole population forced to swear allegiance to either the effete Duke or the fiery, hard-edged Duchess. This is a situation both parties have grown tired of. What use is half a kingdom when, thanks to a carefully engineered murder, you could have it all?

Surely, neither of them would be rash enough to summon the deadly off-world assassin The Scorpion to help with their problem?

And surely, this terrifying figure wouldn’t arrive wearing a long cream coat and striped trousers…?

Script editor Guy Adams explains what to expect in this new tale: “Kingdom of Lies is, at heart, a bubbly farce – albeit one with Deadly Drones of Death and psychotic killers for hire! Listeners who heard Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky’s Early Adventure: The Ravelli Conspiracy will know they have previous form for wringing joy from courtly intrigue.”

Joining the Doctor in this adventure will be a name familiar to some listeners, as Patsy Kensit (Emmerdale, Holby City) crosses paths with the TARDIS crew. While the identity of Patsy’s character is being kept under wraps, director Barnaby Edwards gives us a hint: “I can tell you three things: she’s sassy, she’s deadly and she’s partly cybernetic.”

Kingdom of Lies is available now at £14.99 on CD or £12.99 on download. All CD purchases unlock a download option via the Big Finish app and the Big Finish website.

Or you can save money by getting a subscription to the Doctor Who Main Range. When you subscribe you'll get 30% off the price, free specially recorded Short Trips stories, PDFs of the scripts, and extended downloadable extras. You can subscribe for either 6 or 12 releases.

The next Main Range release (out in February 2018) is Ghost Walk by James Goss.

This is a city of ghosts and no-one knows them better than Leanne. Twice a night she leads tourists on a tour of the most haunted sites – the Hanging Yard, the Witch Pool, the Screaming House, and, of course, the Catacombs.

Leanne’s realised the ghosts of the city are real. Something’s lurking in the Catacombs – an ancient force that has been growing in the darkness for centuries. Sabaoth is returning and they must be stopped before they devour the world.

Leanne knows this, because a ghost told her. A ghost called The Doctor.