Set in London, it stars Gemma Whelan as police officer Sarah Collins, initially from the fictional DSI department.

The first series follows the aftermath of the deaths of a veteran Metropolitan Police officer and a young Libyan girl who fell together from the roof of a London tower block.

The show received generally favourable reviews, with positive comparisons being made by critics to fellow police corruption drama Line of Duty; Whelan's acting was considered a highlight.

[5] Tahirah Sharif was previously seen in The Haunting of Bly Manor and played minor characters in soaps such as Waterloo Road and Casualty.

Jimmy Akingbola had roles in Kate & Koji and Holby City, Emmett J. Scanlan and Nick Holder were both in Peaky Blinders, while Nabil Elouhabi has had parts in EastEnders, Deep State, His Dark Materials[2] and Only Fools and Horses.

[6] Karl Davies had previously appeared in Kingdom, Emmerdale, Happy Valley, Brief Encounters, and Chernobyl,[3] while The Tower was Lola Elsokari's and Rex Parry's first television roles.

[7] The Telegraph suggested that she displayed a "rigid attention to detail at work that masks a sadness in her personal life, which seems to be represented by a signature anorak that is the colour of a dying autumn leaf".

[12] Several different scenarists were considered before Patrick Harbinson, who had previously co-produced the Showtime series Homeland, was chosen as both writer[8] and executive producer.

[17] Sharif later recalled the scenes filmed in Liverpool as particularly difficult due to pervasive rain, which made her "emotional, heavy dialogue... challenging".

[8] Collins and Bradshaw are called to Portland Tower, southeast London,[10] where a police constable and a teenage girl, Farah, have fallen to their deaths.

Eleven days later Adama identifies her gangster from an identity parade, while Collins gets asked to help out with Northumbria Police but opting to accept a job offer at Homicide Command instead.

Although the original book was published many years before the murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens, the show's timing made the comparison obvious to some critics.

[11] She was generally positive about the first episode, writing that "the plot builds at pace but without inducing vertigo in the viewer"[11] and noting its background of "racial tensions, bigger crimes, personal secrets and political arse-covering".

[11] Writing in The Times, Carol Midgley identified an "aura of grim authenticity", which she put down to the original author's police background.

[23] Also addressing comparisons with Line of Duty, Ed Cumming suggested that, unlike that show, with The Tower "there isn't much pure evil here, more opportunists and easy-life seekers".

[10] However, he was overall critical, arguing that Whelan is the only character to consistently hold the viewers' interest and that, generally, the series could have "aimed a bit higher".

[10] The Guardian's Barbara Ellen was also less enthusiastic, picking out what she considered an overuse of flashbacks adding unnecessary confusion to an already complex plot, combined with the shoehorning in of too many themes.

[13] Tahirah Sharif believed that there was plenty of material to allow for the series' expansion, and Emmett Scanlan has pointed out that the later books expand the characters also, particularly Bradshaw's.

She joined the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) as a uniformed PC in 2006 and left in 2014 as a murder squad detective in a Homicide and Serious Crime Command dealing with major investigations[20] before becoming a full-time author.

[27] In response to comparisons between The Tower and the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021, London argued that, in a close-knit institution such as the police, officers often do not speak out or criticise, through fear of becoming known as a troublemaker.

Critic Joan Smith positively reviewed Post Mortem on its 2015 publication, arguing that London "vividly recreates the everyday experience of uniformed police, for the most part avoiding the temptation to take sides.

"[28] London was nervous of ITV's proposal to televise Post Mortem as she had experienced two previous, unsuccessful attempts at turning her book into script.