DEATH AT THE CASTLE GATES

Police sergeant Jess Raker returns from Death on Wolf Fell (2025) to face multiple challenges, professional and personal, in the northwest English county of Lancashire.

Separated from Josh, her cheating husband, Jess enjoys solid support from her mum and two teenage children. But at work, her beloved detective constable, Dougie Doolan, is fading fast from end stage cancer. Up-and-coming Police Community Support Officer Samira Patel is bright, but still a rookie. New transfer PC Ashley Grimshaw seems more focused on her cigarette breaks than on police work. And PC Vinnie McKinty’s about to go on paternity leave. With the help of this ill-assorted crew, Raker needs to locate Donny and Rory Walton, two of the Ribble Valley’s leading drug dealers, head off a turf war between the Waltons and rival Bruce London, and track down her old nemesis Mags Horsefield, arguably the most powerful figure in the Valley’s crimescape, whose sudden disappearance has thrown the local drug trade into chaos. She also agrees to help Doug confront a convicted serial killer named De’Ath, hoping to persuade him to reveal the location of his final victim’s body. These earthly woes are compounded by a series of apparitions, visible only to Jess, of children in deadly peril outside the gates of the local castle. Closer to home, Jess’ daughter, Lily, gets entangled in a complicated friendship with Mags’ daughter, Caitlin, who’s in hiding abroad with her mother. Oldham handles these multiple threads deftly, although the grisly details of the serial killings and Jess’ encounters with the otherworldly may prove a lot for some readers.

Vintage Oldham, featuring a gritty heroine, solid police work, and lots and lots of crime.