Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

I did not realize this was #27 in a series - I probably wouldn't have requested it had I known. It might help to know the history of the character and the series, but even the writing style just didn't really work for me. The set-up was interesting, and some of the story has actually stuck in my mind for a while, but I felt like the characters lacked depth and there was a lot of relying on formulaic tropes. This would work for people who like fast-paced series with a lot of books that don't demand a close reading.

The Henry Christie novels by Nick Oldham rarely, if ever, disappoint and this is one of the best in the series.
I was pleased the author took on the challenge of setting a crime novel during the pandemic (as so many have opted to ignore it!)
Debbie Blackstone is a great character and her back story along with events from 1985 in Henry Christie's life add a very compelling edge to the multi-stranded plot. This is a gritty, edge-of-your-seat thriller.

Many years ago Henry Christie was assaulted by a teenage shoplifter. Luckily to still be alive, he promises himself that he, and he alone, will find that boy and personally escort him to jail. True to himself, he did exactly that ... but the young boy, Tommy Benemy, went missing shortly after his arrest and was never found.

Now retired, Henry is a part of the Cold Case Unit as a civilian investigator. Partnered with DS Debbie Blackstone, they come across a case that immediately reminds Christie of the one case he never solved ...

BOOK BLURB: the pair find themselves confronting their demons as they unearth a deadly criminal conspiracy spanning decades, and chilling secrets desperate individuals will go to any lengths to keep hidden.

Convoluted twists and turns take the reader from past to present to past again showcasing police procedures. It's suspenseful and action packed with solidly drawn characters. Although 28th in the series, this can easily be read as a stand alone. The ending was surprising ... and explosive.

Many thanks to the author / Canongate Books / Severn House Publishers / Netgalley for the digital copy of this crime fiction. Read and reviewed voluntarily, opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

After 25 years, DI Henry
Christie has become a
wonderful friend and
this latest addition to
the long running series
is simply a winner.
An action packed police
procedural set around
Lancashire, tackling the
delicate subject of child
abuse, running back and
forth between 1985 and
2020, & build with enough
twists and turns to keep
the reader's on his toes
from start to finish. A very
powerful cast complete
this fiendishly well written
novel led by an amazing
(and now retired) Henry,
the winsome DI and a
slew of strong supporting
roles.
Sleek, tense and utterly
compelling this fictional
feat is a definitive must
for anyone familiar with
this marvellous series. It
can also be enjoyed as a
stand alone and be used
as a perfect opportunity
to take a dive into the world of one of the most
enduring PP series on
the market.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Canongate/Severn
for this terrific ARC and

Probably best read by fans of the long running series, this sees DI Henry Christie, now retired, revisit one of his first cases. He's been brought back as a civilian and the first thing he's working is the death of the mother of a Tommy, man he arrested. Tommy disappeared when released on bail and hasn't been seen since. There's also plot line involving his sergeant, which is interesting and likely more meaningful to those familiar with her. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. A well done procedural I read as more or less a standalone.

This is the third book I have read that features Henry Christie. They have all featured after his retirement from the police. I keep meaning to read previous books when he was working, but I suspect that I prefer these latest ones. There aren't many books featuring retired detectives.
This one opens with Henry as a uniformed police constable. He is working in a support unit covering Blackpool, Preston and East Lancashire. Working on apprehending shoplifters. He is ambushed when about to arrest one young boy and is hospitalized. Henry eventually arrests the youth but he fails to appear to be charged and goes missing.
The time frame moves to the present day. Because of covid the Tawny Owl country hotel has suffered and Henry agrees to a six month secondment as a civilian investigator, seconded to a cold case unit run by det. sergeant Debbie Blackstone a feisty tough woman who doesn't suffer fools gladly.
They are soon on the trail of a rapist and the case will have far reaching consequences for them both.
A well written exciting and at times violent book, perhaps a little far fetched on occasion but still gripping. I enjoy reading about Henry's exploits. Will he ever marry Diane? I enjoy the Lancashire locations which I know well. I recommend this terrific book without reservation. I look forward to the next one.

This is a really good, well written police procedural. It is written with sensitivity to the subject matter of child abuse. Although part of a series, it can be read as a stand alone and has a good pace, plenty tension and enough surprises and twists to occupy the reader. I like the two main characters of Henry and Debbie, they make a good team. Overall, I would recommend the read to lovers of the genre and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

When I requested this police procedural I had no idea it was book 27 in a series. I had not read any of the previous books. The story begins in 1985 as PC Henry Christie is beginning his career in Blackpool and continues on for several chapters before it stops and jumps forward one year. There has been no resolution in the beginning case, but Henry has been given a promotion and on his first day in the CID when he is sent to a crime scene which develops into something much bigger than it seemed at first. That crime continues for several chapters and then just stops, once again. We pick Henry back up in 2020. I was having a struggle to keep reading because I didn't like Henry one bit. His character was portrayed in a way that did nothing but irritate me. I decided to continue reading but the book never worked for me because of the main character. It was just okay and, actually, on the tepid side of okay.

Thank you to NetGalley and Canongate Books Severn House Publishing for an e-galley of this novel.

If ever there were an appropriate title for a Henry Christie novel, it is this. For newcomers, former Lancashire copper Nick Oldham created Christie in 1996 with A Time For Justice. Scarred is, I believe the 28th in the series, and while Christie hasn’t quite aged the full twenty five years since we first met him, he is rather like Tennyson’s Ulysses:

“Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;”

Sticking with the Bard of Somersby, Christie is also;

“Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Back in the day, Henry Christie was a senior detective with the Lancashire Constabulary. He is now long since retired, running a moorland pub, but unable to resist the call to arms when he is asked to operate as a civilian consultant with his old force. Back to the title, though. Christie has endured many a beating at the hands of his criminal adversaries. He carries scars which are both physical and mental from his days battling bad men – and equally malignant women. Without giving too much away, I can say the word ‘scarred’ has a wider connotation than Henry’s war wounds.

I have become weary in recent years of what I call the “four years earlier – six months later” school of narrative, and I raised the tiniest hair of an eyebrow when I saw that this book starts in 1985, when Christie was (I almost said “nobbut a lad” but then remembered that they say that on the other side of the Pennines, not in Lancashire) a young Detective Constable, trying to nab shoplifters. One particular pursuit ends in Christie being severely beaten, and ending up in intensive care. Wisely, Nick Oldham stays with this period of his man’s career for some considerable time, and doesn’t follow the irritating (to me) pattern of lurching between time slots every three or four pages.

81RhPuniszSThe 1985 episode links crucially with the second part of the book which is firmly in present day Covid-restricted Lancashire, complete with masks and elbow bumps. A teenage boy who was the object of Christie’s near fatal pursuit – but then disappeared off the face of the earth – turns up again, but in an unexpected and deeply disturbing way.

A word or two about the places where the book is set. I have spoken of this in previous reviews of Henry Christie stories, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that because some of the action centres on the Blackpool area, there is any sense of sun and fun, saucy postcards and kiss-me-quick hats. The ubiquitous Google provides a statement from Lancashire Country Council:

“Blackpool (20.9%), in the Lancashire-14 area, has the largest proportion of its working age population employment deprived in England, and the third largest percentage income deprived (24.7%). Blackpool has the largest number of people employment deprived and income deprived in the Lancashire-14 area.“

Where you have the ‘D’ word you always have crime, meanness of spirit and Oldham doesn’t shy away from describing the littered streets, the drug-ridden estates, the human desert speckled with steel-grilled convenience stores and tattoo shops, the youngsters who have turned feral by the age of twelve, and the desperate single mothers, endlessly betrayed by the absent fathers of their children, and whose only solace is tobacco and cheap alcohol. It doesn’t make the Henry Christie novels Noir, exactly, mainly because HC is such a decent fellow. He is a man who remains optimistic in spite of everything, and perhaps he is a soulmate of the man so superbly described by Raymond Chandler:

“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.”

Back to the book. Mr Civilian Christie has been partnered with a firebrand Detective Sergeant, xxxxx who is fixated on the fact that there has been systematic collusion between the police and criminals in Lancashire over a long period of time. Because of this, she has been shunted sideways into investigating cold case crime, an operation which may make for good police procedurals on TV, but is probably frustrating for officers who want to be at the sharp end of investigation and law enforcement. What starts as a hunt for man who raped a young girl many months ago morphs into the discovery of a huge child abuse scandal, and ends with one of the most ferocious finales you could want to read.

At first glance it would be easy to categorise this as another cold case/police procedure story as it introduces us to Henry Christie retired from the Lancashire Police and now co-owner of a pub who is struggling to survive during the Covid restrictions. Henry is a civilian investigator in the Cold Case Unit. His boss, DS Debbie Blackmore enlists his help to arrest a rapist which in turn evokes an old case that he had promised to resolve and never did – the case of Tommy Benemy. Henry witnessed Tommy shoplifting and gave chase. When he confronted Tommy and another young lad he was attacked by a third party and hospitalised. Shortly after this Tommy disappeared entirely.

However this is so much more than just another in the genre, largely, I think, because of the two main protagonists Henry and Debbie. Debbie is quite damaged with an abrasive personality who was badly scarred during an acid attack during the course of her police work. The dialogue and relationship between these two has a deeper perspective and at times is quite humorous. I would expect that we would re-visit the pair in further novels.

This book offers a lot: corruption is at the heart of it all, corporate, institutional, child abuse, and paedophilia and always, greed.

A fantastic novel with good structure, sensitive handling of the subject matter, good pace, tension and great plot development. An outstanding read which I thoroughly enjoyed and most heartily recommend.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

This is a superb read. Unlike most detective books, it is not confined to one point in time but follows the career of the main character, Henry Christie, from his initiation as a young constable, through his career to superintendent and into his retirement. After that, he is invited back to be a civilian investigator. That lets him make contact with a small number of unsolved crimes the mystery of which have irritated him throughout his career. These themes start with his pursuit of a teenage shoplifter ending in Christie being attacked.....but by whom? That is the trigger for the whole story. The police characters are well drawn, their empathy with victims carefully described. The reader will be absorbed by the gradual revealing of more information leading to a satisfying and well constructed ending. This book is well written, well researched. It would be a good television series. I recommend it strongly.

Thank you Netgalley and Cannongate Books/Severn House for the eARC.
Retired from the police, Henry Christie is now a Civilian Investigator for the Cold Case Unit and teamed up with DS Debbie Blackstone. They rub along fairly well, despite Debbie's volatility and PTSD from a former attack, leaving her scarred on the inside as well as the outside.
But we start with Christy as a young constable in the 1980's. He spotted a shoplifter, about 13 years old, stealing a huge amount of perfume and chases him - waking up in hospital, severely beaten and kicked, almost dead. The kid ends up missing in the future, with Henry promising his mother he will keep looking for him.
In 2020, with COVID still rampant, Henry and Debbie are on the case of a serial rapist and the suspected suicide of a woman who, Henry shockingly realizes, is the mother he promised to help find her son, the shoplifter. Only it wasn't a suicide, but murder and Henry feels terribly guilty, promising himself he will find the killer(s).
A very good police procedural with a sympathetic pair of protagonists set in a surprisingly (to me) dark and dangerous Blackpool, I thoroughly enjoyed this read and definitely recommend it. Can't wait for the next one!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Severn House Publishers for an advance copy of Scarred, the twenty eighth novel to feature retired DCS Henry Christie of the Lancashire Police.

Due to the financial hardships of running a pub during lockdown Henry returns to the Cold Case Unit as a civilian investigator. He’s barely in the door when unit chief, DS Debbie Blackmore, asks him to help her arrest a rapist. What they find in the home leads Henry back to an old case and promises that he neither solved nor kept.

I thoroughly enjoyed Scarred, which is another exciting read with a plot full of twists and turns. The first third of the novel is set in the mid eighties and explores one of Henry’s first cases, when chasing a shoplifter he is seriously injured. He identifies the shoplifter as teenager Tommy Benemy, who promptly disappears, never to be seen again, but throughout his career he reviewed the case regularly as he promised Tommy’s mum. The rest of the novel is taken up with his and Debbie’s investigation into what happened to Tommy and, incidentally, to Debbie who has her own scars.

This is not a particularly profound novel, but it is full of events, developments and a certain amount of tension. I guessed some of it, but, generally, and specifically in the detail, the surprises and twists just kept coming. The cruelty of human nature is on full display and while the novel doesn’t shy away from it, it is mercifully short on graphic detail. All in all it’s a good combination of entertainment and reality.

I think Henry Christie and Debbie Blackmore are a good team. I came late to the series but this duo have something that was lacking in the previous collaborations I have read. There is a kind of spark to their interactions, funny at times but also supportive and understanding. Debbie received life changing injuries four years ago and they have damaged her psyche, so Henry is just the man to sort her out. I would like to see more of Debbie.

Interesting to see the pandemic featured in the novel. I think the author does a good job of not ignoring it, but equally not making it central to the novel. It’s just there to be dealt with.

Scarred is a good read that I have no hesitation in recommending.