Circles of Deceit is a British television thriller series, produced by Yorkshire Television, first broadcast on ITV on 16 October 1993.^[1] The series stars Dennis Waterman as John Neil, a former serving officer in the Special Air Service, who works as a private investigator for the secret service. A total of four episodes were broadcast, including a single feature-length self-titled pilot in 1993,^[2] and a series of three episodes, filmed in 1995, and broadcast between 1995 and 1996. Although broadcast as the final episode of the series, Sleeping Dogs is set chronologically after the events of the self-titled pilot (which was re-titled The Wolves are Howling for disambiguation reasons on repeat broadcasts and home video release).

Aside from Neil, the only other character to appear in all four films was the Controller. In the pilot, this role was assumed by Derek Jacobi (under the pseudonym of Randal). For the series, Jacobi was replaced by Susan Jameson. The only other recurring character throughout the series was Andy, a wheelchair-using researcher and collator, played by Dave Hill. A VHS video of the self-titled pilot was released in the United States in 1994. The complete series was later released on Region 1 DVD in the United States by Acorn Media on 17 May 2011.^[3] On 23 April 2018, nearly twenty-five years after the broadcast of the self-titled pilot, the complete series was released on Region 2 DVD in the United Kingdom by Strawberry Media.^[4]