BBC One’s ground-breaking new international thriller McMafia is an eight-part series created by Hossein Amini and James Watkins and inspired by Misha Glenny’s best-selling book of the same name.

It charts Alex Godman’s (James Norton) journey as he is drawn deeper and deeper into the world of organised crime.

As the English-raised son of Russian exiles with a mafia history, Alex has spent his life trying to escape the shadow of that criminal past, building his own legitimate business and forging a life with his girlfriend Rebecca (Juliet Rylance). But when his family’s past returns to threaten them, Alex is forced to confront his values to protect those he loves. What starts out as a story of survival and revenge becomes an epic tale of a man’s struggle against the lures of corruption in the modern world and in himself. McMafia is impressive and intimate, glamorous and gritty, global in scale and forensic in detail.

Further cast include David Strathairn, Faye Marsay, Aleksey Serebryakov, Maria Shukshina and Merab Ninidze. McMafia is co-produced by the BBC, AMC and Cuba Pictures, in association with Twickenham Studios, and distributed internationally by BBC Worldwide.