Wildfire

by Nick Oldham

Overview

Henry Christie is drawn out of retirement by a brutal killer and must confront old foes in this breathless thriller.

Henry Christie is enjoying a quiet retirement running the Tawny Owl pub - until a devastating moorland fire tears through the surrounding area and he finds himself at the forefront of coordinating the local response. When the occupants of a remote farm can't be contacted, Henry goes to check on them - and makes a grisly discovery.

Reluctantly agreeing to help the police with their investigation, Henry is reunited with DC Diane Daniels, and is soon confronting an explosive mix of organized crime, violence and drug turf wars which leads him back to his old hunting ground in Blackpool - and old enemies who will stop at nothing to finally have their revenge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780291802
Publisher:	Severn House
Publication date:	07/27/2021
Series:	A Henry Christie Mystery , #26
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.55(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

03/16/2020

In Oldham’s intricately plotted 26th Henry Christie thriller (after 2018’s Bad Cops), the retired Lancaster policeman who runs “a pub and country house hotel out in the wilds of the Lune Valley” decides to check on John and Isobel York to make sure they’re safe from the wildfire that’s sweeping the countryside. At the couple’s house, Christie finds Isobel’s naked, decapitated body in the bathtub and John’s dismembered body arranged on the snooker table. When he calls Det. Constable Diane Daniels to report the deaths, he learns that Daniels has her hands full with a crime spree that includes murder, a machete attack, arson, and gang warfare. In fact, the local constabulary has so much on its plate that Christie is hired to help investigate the York murders. Oldham smoothly unfurls the fast and furious action and seamlessly stitches together the various threads to form a satisfying whole. Henry’s reflections on aging lend a nice touch. Fans of contemporary British police procedurals will be rewarded. Agent: Olav Wyper, SMA Talent (U.K.). (May)

Publishers Weekly

Bloodshed, suspense, shocking twists, and a punch-to-the-gut ending make for a gripping, wrenching, mesmerizing read. One of the best in a consistently excellent series - add it to the growing list of mysteries starring retired cops (Harry Bosch, John Rebus)

Booklist Starred Review of Bad Blood

'A fast-paced, suspenseful thriller that's packed with unexpected twists and brutal violence... a gripping page-turner'

Booklist

A razor-sharp plot, shocking twists, gruesome violence, pulse-pounding suspense, and a heart-stopping ending make this a not-to-be-missed page-turner for fans of hard-boiled cop thrillers

Booklist Starred Review of Bad Cops

'A fast-paced, suspenseful thriller that's packed with unexpected twists and brutal violence... a gripping page-turner'

Booklist

2020-02-09
DCI Henry Christie’s best attempts at retirement come to naught.

Custody sergeant Bill Heaton is pretty well satisfied that Thomas Costain is the man who kicked Damian Medway to death on a quiet Lancaster street. And soon after the local constabulary puts Tommy under 72-hour arrest, Brendan O’Hara and Cillian Roche, a pair of killers hired by his gang-lord grandfather, Conrad Costain, break into the jail, kill Heaton, free Tommy from his cell, and run off. Detective Superintendent Rik Dean, his forces stretched to their limit by a fire that’s claimed the lives of Andrea Greatrix and the child she held on her lap, wants Henry (Bad Cops, 2018, etc.) to help out DC Diane Daniels, of the Force Major Investigative Team—or, actually, to let Diane, who worked with Henry long ago and still admires him, to help him as he tries to make sense of this outbreak of violence. Henry, who’s already been targeted by O’Hara and Roche for personal revenge ever since he asked them to stop vaping at The Tawny Owl, the pub he runs, holds out for the outrageous sum of 1,000 pounds a day. Once he gets it, he throws himself as wholeheartedly into the case as if he were 30 years younger. And a good thing too, for the killings, which have continued apace with the beheading of Isobel York and the dismembering of her husband, John, show no sign of abating. It’s clear that the crime family run by the patriarch Conrad Costain is behind most of the mayhem, but a forgotten figure from Henry’s past turns up to claim a share of the credit.

Stouthearted police battle better-armed criminals to an outcome as implausible as it is inevitable.

Kirkus Reviews