Demolition

by Nick Oldham

Overview

Secrets, lies, murder... and planning permission. Henry Christie is pulled into two chilling murder investigations and uncovers dark secrets dating back to the Second World War in this unflinching thriller.

Henry Christie is focused on running his pub, the Tawny Owl, where he learns of the Kendleton protest group's fury with James Twain, a local property developer, and the keen desire of some residents to solve a murder that stretches back to the Second World War.

When James is viciously killed in his barn, and another body is found in similar disturbing circumstances nearby, Henry is drawn into the investigations and the villagers' dark wartime secrets. Pulled out of retirement once more to lead a double murder inquiry for Lancashire police, can he uncover the truth behind chilling events both past and present?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448306947
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Series:	A Henry Christie Mystery , #30
Edition description:	Main
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.79(w) x 8.74(h) x (d)

About the Author

Nick Oldham is a retired police inspector who served in the force from the age of nineteen. As well as the acclaimed Henry Christie novels, he is the author of the Steve Flynn series.

Editorial Reviews

07/11/2022

Oldham’s facile 29th Henry Christie mystery (after 2021’s Scarred) finds Christie, a retired detective-cum–pub owner of the Tawny Owl in the quaint English village of åçKendleton, reluctantly drawn back into his former work upon the murders of two cutthroat real estate speculators, who were apparently in cahoots with each other. While Christie and his unlikely partner, Det. Sgt. Debbie Blackstone, a spiky pink-haired, tattooed, facially pierced 20-something, are investigating, an elderly, invalid neighbor is assaulted, leading them to the discovery of generations-old unsolved murders and rapes. Though the plot is clever, at times the dialogue misses the mark. (No self-respecting punker would say, for example, “You big, soft lummox, come ’ere,” as Blackstone says to Christie.) And strangely, while almost the entire police local force is laid low by Covid, none of the other characters are affected by it in the least. Though Oldham knows how to deliver what his fans want, some may feel that this long-running series is beginning to show signs of fatigue. Agent: Olav Wyper, SMS Talent (U.K.). (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Full of action, humour and lovingly described Lancashire locations

 The Times Mark Sanderson

High-voltage action

Booklist

This edge-of-the seat narrative, with constantly ratcheting tension, features a twist-a-minute plot and a thoroughly unexpected shock ending

Booklist on Tranfusion

Fans of Oldham's Henry Christie series will already know to expect an action-packed, violence-filled, edge-of-the-seat thriller, while readers not yet familiar with this excellent series have a real treat in store . . . A meaty plot full of white-knuckle suspense makes this a cracking-good read

Booklist on Bad Timing

2022-06-22
Retired Det. Superintendent Henry Christie, taken off the shelf again to question a suspect who won’t speak to anyone else, finds himself investigating a rash of crimes committed before he was born.

When Celia Twain discovers her husband’s corpse only a few hours after she’d publicly threatened to kill him over his adultery, the Kendleton constabulary are naturally interested. Since Celia refuses to talk to anyone but Henry, who’s been around forever, DS Rik Dean offers him 500 pounds for a day’s work getting her statement, which naturally doesn’t include a confession of murder. Meantime, things have heated up dramatically in the village. Although James Twain had plenty of enemies, the news that he was a business partner of Marcus Durham, whose bullet-riddled body was recently found in his own swimming pool, strongly suggests that the same person may have killed them both. A group of young toughs have attacked wheelchair-bound Veronica Gough, and one of them has tried to drown her. Then several of them break into her house, and one of them threatens her with violence, triggering her memory of her rape by another villager during the celebrations of VE-Day in 1945. The more closely Henry, now awarded the nonce title of Civilian Senior Investigating Officer, looks into the past, the more convinced he becomes that Veronica’s memories may hold the key to a pair of unsolved murders committed even earlier, back in 1941. As DS Debbie Blackstone, Henry’s old boss in the Lancaster Cold Case Unit, observes, “It’s all about people taking things from other people.” Even as Henry is making arrests, Oldham continues to multiply complications in the final chapter, and the story ends with quite a cliffhanger.

The busiest, saddest, untidiest village mystery ever.

Kirkus Reviews