DEATH RIDE

Even though he’s retired from the Lancashire Constabulary, Henry Christie continues his quest to prove that English villages are the most dangerous places on Earth and the most traumatic for himself.

When 13-year-old Charlotte Kirkham vanishes from under her mother’s and stepfather’s noses at the Kendleton Country Fair, Henry, noting Melinda West’s maternal distress, offers to help rouse the troops for a search. Along the way, something about Leonard Lennox, who runs a burger van, strikes him as familiar, and no wonder: Twelve years ago, Henry’s testimony had put Lennox away for kidnapping an 8-year-old girl. It hardly matters that the abductor this time is Lennox’s son, Ernest, because the pressure Henry puts on the elder Lennox brings the man’s long-festering desire for revenge to the boiling point. While DS Debbie Blackstone and her team are still looking for Charlotte, Lennox and his mates—Ernest; catalytic converter thieves Benny and Jimbo; and sadistic pickpocket Cinderella Watkinson—launch a furious round of violent crimes. Their home invasion of wealthy county fair supporter Maude Crichton nets them thousands in cash and jewelry and Maude’s beloved bichon frisé. Moving on to the home of fair organizer Veronica Gough, they demand the proceeds from the event, which she’s placed in Henry’s hands. So they target The Tawny Owl, the pub Henry owns with Ginny Holt, the stepdaughter of his lost love, Alison, who's just told Henry that she and her fiance, Fred Livingston, are going to have a baby. The only weak link in this volley of fireworks is the extended epilogue, three months later, when Henry’s finally in a position to take his own revenge.

How many sorrows can a franchise hero be put through? Oldham continues to push the envelope.