Seizure

April 15, 2010
Two cases collide for newly promoted Detective Superintendent Henry Christie.

Felix Deakin, mobster extraordinaire, is so unwilling to serve out his full term in Lancashire Prison that he tells his lawyer and the crown prosecutor Naomi Dale that he'd be glad to testify against a rival gangster in court. Thrilled, they agree, but their plans go belly up when the wily Deakin, even more unwilling than they thought, escapes en route from court. DS Henry Christie, newly reunited with his wife but still up for a quick tumble with Naomi, is assigned the job of finding Deakin. Genteel readers may not care for all the torture and corpses Christie encounters in his quest, but they nicely echo the torture and corpses surrounding ex-cop Steve Flynn, now captaining fishing tours in the Canary Islands and, as Deakin sees it, living high off the million English pounds Flynn confiscated from him in a drug raid. Flynn is forced to deal with the murder of his girlfriend and the explosion of his boat. But what sends him back to England to confront Deakin is the villain's abduction of his son, for whose release he demands the million pounds. When Flynn offers his help in finding Deakin, Christie reluctantly consents. The result is an unexpected twist and a sizzling wrap-up.

Oldham (The Nothing Job, 2009, etc.) stands beside Bill James as another tough, undervalued practitioner of police procedurals, none more astounding than this.

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May 1, 2010
The killing of a security guard during a robbery leads newly promoted DS Henry Christie ("The Nothing Job") to link the crime to an imprisoned drug lord. But his life is complicated when the drug lord, who wants to give evidence in court against one of his rivals, escapes from custody and kidnaps an ex-cop's son. VERDICT Oldham writes multilevel crime stories told in multiple voices, which adds to the suspense and gives an immediacy to the gritty violence. For those who like Graham Hurley.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2010
Henry Christie, whose policing methods often raise his colleagues eyebrows but who always gets results, has been promoted to detective superintendent, a move that both discomfits and pleases him. Fearing that desk work will keep him from the rockface of policing, Henry vows to continue doing what he loves. His first test: the shooting of a security guard during a robbery gone wrong. Christie sees the earmarks of drug lord Felix Deacon all over the case, but Deacon has been in prison for six years. His involvement by proxy seems impossible to prove until Christie links several seemingly unrelated incidentsa womans tragic death, an explosion on a fishing boat in the Canary Islands, and the kidnapping of a disgraced ex-cops sonto the case. Only when Deacon escalates things to a whole new level and puts Christies job and reputation in jeopardy can the detective, despite the scepticism of his superiors, apply his own version of thumbscrews and crack the case. A tense, keep-em-guessing plot; plenty of surprising twists; and an unorthodox hero make this an offbeat but highly appealing read.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)