TRANSFUSION

Oldham’s latest starts off as if it’s going to be a fourth adventure for disgraced ex-cop Steve Flynn before it ropes in his veteran colleague Henry Christie in an unlikely role.

Albanian crime lord Viktor Bashkim, holed up in Cyprus, is as sharp as ever, but now that he’s 80, he knows it’s time to hand over the reins—not to his playboy son, Nico, but to his daughter, Sofia, who’s got the brains and the guts to breathe new life into the family business. Unfortunately for Viktor, Flynn and Kurt Donaldson of the FBI have just discovered that he only faked his death the last time they crossed swords. So he hires a killer dubbed the Tradesman to kill Flynn before he can get any closer. The Tradesman, who, under the name of Bennett, runs a profitable pet crematorium that gives him access to confidential information he turns into an even more profitable side hustle of credit-card fraud, stops on the way to another assignment with an intriguing connection to his latest job to ask directions of a pubkeeper who just happens to be Christie, a retired detective superintendent working as a civilian investigator with formidable DS Debbie Blackstone of the Lancashire Constabulary. Bennett returns that night to pinch Christie’s phone, and the chase is on. Or rather, the chases: a junior colleague who thinks it’s time he seized control of Bashkim’s organization, Christie’s search for the man who swiped his phone, and of course Flynn and Donaldson’s original pursuit of Bashkim, who ends up having troubles even closer to home.

Understated exposition and violent set pieces, all professionally handled throughout.