The second Jessica Raker crime mystery, Death on Wolf Fell (2025) by Nick Oldham is another quality police procedural. Jessica Raker is a uniformed police sergeant in Lancashire, whose old school peer, Mags Horsefield runs the local drugs network. After raiding one of Mags’ old warehouses, Jessica gets a clear warning with two burning cars - one outside her home. Attending a firearms incident at the local Wolf Fell manor house, Jessica sees Mags with a London crime family member. As Jessica’s team juggles the various case investigations, she is once again targeted in a hit run accident. With plenty of action and building tension, the inevitable final confrontation between Jessica and Mags makes for a four star read rating. With thanks to Severn House and the author, for an uncorrected advanced review copy for review purposes. As always, the opinions herein are totally my own, freely given and without any inducement.

Another good thriller by this author: twisty and gripping, solid characters and plot
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Death on Wolf Fell by Nick Oldham is the second book in the Superb Sergeant Jessica Raker series and I loved this crime novel. This has been a series that has been excellent and another 5 star read from start to finish, especially as it was full of great twists and turns that will have you wanting more. I love the main character Sergeant Jessica Raker and I am enjoying reading and learning more about her.

Former Metropolitan Police firearms officer Sergeant Jessica Raker is on a mission to bring down a brutal organized crime group operating in the idyllic Ribble Valley.

The OCG's leader, Mags Horsefield, is determined to make one of the members pay for getting caught by the police, using her contacts to make sure he’s released from prison early . . . into her waiting clutches.

Jess knows Mags from their school days, but their lives now couldn’t be more different. A fire at a local mill puts Jess on the tail of Mags’ OCG; is this her opportunity to catch the Ribble Valley’s most wanted criminal?
The battle lines have been drawn, but when Jess is called to an incident at Wolf Fell Hall, a series of terrifying events follow . . . . . . .

I highly recommend this series - 5 star book. Superb!


Big Thank you to NetGalley and Thanks to the Severn House for my ARC.

This book I thought was absolutely exceptional, I just could not put it down until its final paragraph as I was so absorbed by the exciting story which had me gripped until it's very dramatic conclusion.

A split-second decision has life-changing consequences for Metropolitan Police firearms officer Jessica Raker when she fatally wounds the son of a notorious organized crime chief during a robbery in Greenwich - and discovers her husband has been having an affair.

The OCG's leader, Mags Horsefield, is determined to make one of the members pay for getting caught by the police, using her contacts to make sure he’s released from prison early . . . into her waiting clutches.

Jess knows Mags from their school days, but their lives now couldn’t be more different. A fire at a local mill puts Jess on the tail of Mags’ OCG; is this her opportunity to catch the Ribble Valley’s most wanted criminal? The battle lines have been drawn, but when Jess is called to an incident at Wolf Fell Hall, a series of terrifying events follow . . .

The author has thoroughly researched his story and this gives an authenticity to it which is very helpful for the reader. The descriptions of places and other characters in the storyline are dealt with in a very careful manner

This is the second book that I have read by the former detective author and I hope it won't be the last as I have bought all his previous titles. It is such an exciting book that I strongly recommend it.
(review galley provided by the publisher via netgalley in exchange for a fair review)

A great addition to the Jess Raker series which is set in Lancashire. Book 2 begins with Jess investigating an organised crime group in a fast paced, edge of your seat ride. With well developed characters, a good plot and plenty of suspense, this is bound to appeal to fans of crime procedurals and thrillers. The ending left me hoping we don't have too long to wait for book 3! I really enjoyed the read, it is an easy 5* from me. Thanks to Net Galley for my ARC.

Former Metropolitan Police firearms officer Sergeant Jessica Raker is back on the beat in the Ribble Valley, where she has a small team that works with her. The beat is meant to be about solving minor crime. However, all is not how it seems, especially when Mags Horsefield is around and a supposed leader of an OCG. We start with Mags waiting for a remand prisoner to be released so she can get to grips with him. Jess is not a fan of Mags and wants to bring her down. Jess and her team are soon hot on her trail after a fire at a mill. Although, when there is an incident at Wolf Fell Hall, Jess and the team stumble onto something but will it help or hinder them in their cause? What follows is an unstoppable rollercoaster of a ride with plenty of twists and turns that lead to an unexpected conclusion.

I love a good crime novel where I can instantly be familiar with the characters and also picture the setting in which they go about their nefarious business. Death on Wolf Fell intrigued me particularly because it’s set in my home county of Lancashire and some of the places mentioned I have visited so can easily put everything into context. The story begins with a dramatic opener which gets this pacy police procedural off to an explosive start with a gangland madam determined to succeed and a feisty police sergeant who is equally ferocious in her determination to stop crime boss Mags Horsefield in her tracks.

Nick Oldham is a new author for me and whilst I haven’t read the first book in this Jessica Raker series, this second book hits the ground running with enough back story included so that I never felt as if I was floundering in a sea of what happened before. It’s gritty and occasionally violent without being gratuitously so which makes everything feel authentic, if rather gung-ho at times. I feel DS Raker is a central character who will grow more into her lead detective role as the series progresses.There was enough bad stuff going on to keep me guessing and I enjoyed the insight into Jess’s personal life, with her kids and mother, and her burgeoning interest in fireman Joe.

I raced through the story pretty quickly as once started I could put the book down eager for the final outcome and hoped that Jess Raker would sort the good guys from the bad. The story ends on a real cliffhanger which gave me hope that there will be another DS Jessica Raker novel following in the not too distant future and in the meantime I can read the first book in the series Death at Dead Men’s Stakes so I’m all caught up.

My thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Death on Wolf Fell’, the second book in the Sergeant Jessica Raker series written by Nick Oldham, in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

Mags Horsefield is the leader of an organised crime group in the Ribble Valley who together with her lover Tommy Moss of the Moss Gang is highly dangerous. Sergeant Jessia Raker and Mags Horsefield disliked each other at first sight when they met at school and while Jess is determined to arrest Mags for her criminal activity, Mags is equally determined to get rid of the police officer who’s been a thorn in her side for many years.

‘Death On Wolf Fell’ is an excellent second thriller in the series with Sergeant Jessica Raker and her team of DC Dougie Doolan, PC Vinnie McKinty, and the ever-willing PCSO Samira Patel. I’ve been swept away by the action-packed plot, the wonderfully described characters and friendly relationships Jess has with her team knowing they’ll do all they can to support her. This has been a thoroughly entertaining thriller and a great sequel to the previous ‘Death at Dead Man’s Stake’. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading more of Jess’ background, her children and often-absent husband Josh as well as the attraction she has for fireman Joe Borwick, and very much hope they’ll be more novels in the series coming in the future.

I didn't read the first book in this series but didn't feel like this affect my reading of this one so it could be read as a standalone although for the full back story of the character's it is usually best to read them in order. Jessica Raker is an interesting character and the pace moves along at a good pace to hold your interest and keep you reading till the end. .I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A good second book in a. series featuring DS Jess Raker whose personal and professional life are both in turmoil. Forced to relocate from London to Clitheroe brings more issues, notably a head on confrontation with Mags, the head of the local gang with whom Jess has history. Oh and their daughters are friends. Unfortunately, Mags is also on a murderous rampage that Jess must stop. I liked this for Jess (one determined cop) and for her team as well as for the layered portrayal of Mags. It should be fine as a standalone but you will enjoy it more if you read the first one. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARc. A good read.

This is the next instalment of the career of Lancashire DS Jessica Raker, to whom we were introduced in "Death at Dead Man's Stake". Jess resumes her head-to-head battle with gang boss Maggie Horsefield, a ruthless and vindictive woman who is at the apex of the criminal fraternity, but someone who swims in the toxic waste in terms of human decency. It complicates matters that Jess's daughter Lily and Maggie's offspring Caitlin are BFFs at school.

It's fair to say that Jessica Raker has something of a turbulent past. Born and bred in the district she now polices, she gravitated to London, where her career in the Metropolitan Police concluded dramatically with her shooting dead a feckless younger member of a serious crime gang. When a retaliatory contract was taken out on her life, she was relocated to Clitheroe. She has two children, but her relationship with husband Josh is, to say the least, threadbare, although they are still together.

This story starts with Lance Drake, a petty crook somewhere near the bottom of Maggie Horsefield's barrel of criminal employees, facing his worst nightmare. He is being released on license from HMP Preston, where he has been quite happily spending the last few months, safe from the inevitable retribution which has awaited him since he shot his mouth off to the police, thus losing his boss tens of thousands of pounds in a drug shipment.

Inevitably, given that Horsefield has her employees embedded at every level of the criminal justice system, Drake is soon grabbed, and when the hood is taken from his head, he finds himself cable-tied to a chair sitting, ominously, on a large plastic sheet spread on the floor of a disused mill, with Horsefield sitting nearby, fondling a zombie knife. Jess Raker's team have had their eyes on this mill for some time, rightly suspecting that is part of Horsefield's drug distribution business and, happily for Lance Drake, they choose that moment for a raid.

Most of Horsefield's goons get away, the mill plus an industrial quantity of 'merchandise' go up in flames, and the stage is set for a dramatic encounter as Horsefield and her lover, London gangster Tommy Moss, plan a multi-million pound raid on Wolf Fell Hall, an ancestral home which contains scores of priceless old master paintings. Along the way, we learn more about the team of officers around Jessica Raker. There is the intelligent and resourceful PCSO Samira Patel, who yearns to become a 'proper' copper. CID officer Dougie Doolan is one of Jessica's mainstays, but she suspects he is hiding a grim secret. Her boss, Inspector Price, we strongly suspect may be a wrong 'un, but is he actually feeding information to the dreadful Maggie Horsefield?

One thing you will not find in a Nick Oldham novel, thankfully, is the remotest trace of sympathetic hand-wringing for his villains. Yes they may come from awful families with dreadful parents but, like all of us, they have a choice. If they take the wrong road, then they have no-one to blame but themselves. For Oldham, once a working copper in hives of scum and villainy like Blackpool, they have made their choice and deserve everything they get. He has a direct, no-frills narrative style. The sheer readability of his novels is based on superb storytelling, and an unparalleled knowledge of English policing, woven together with a sense of place, location and topography designed to draw the reader into the narrative. Death on Wolf Fell will be published by Severn House on 6th May.

One of my favourite authors. One of the many things I like about the books is the use of real places. Blackburn, Clitheroe, Whalley, Bolton by Bowland, West Bradford, Waddington etc. If you know the area it adds to the enjoyment.
Jess Raker is a police sergeant who had to relocate her family back to her home town, after killing in the line of duty, one of the Moss family, a vicious London gang. Jess's marriage is under strain, with her husband Josh often away overnight in Manchester. When they were in London he was caught having an affair. Jess's mother has moved up to the Clitheroe area and helps Jess with her two children.
Jess has a personal vendetta with Maggie Horsefield a local villain. Made more difficult as Jess's daughter is good friends with Maggie's daughter! Jess's line manager inspector Price, who is based in Blackburn is in Maggie's pay.
Luckilly Jess has a good team around her in Clitheroe, Vinnie, Samira and Dougie from C.I.D. When Jess and the team interrupt a local villain Lance Drake's execution at Maggie's hands, this is the start of incidents leading up to murder at a local ancestral home - Wolf Fell Hall.
Maggie is in a relationship with Tommy Moss ( the elder brother of the one Jess killed ), but Tommy is married to Leonora the violent and unpredictable wife based in London.
Jess's private life is further complicated because of the mutual attraction with a local Fire fighter - Joe. Once more Jess faces death as she tries to police her local area.
Jess is very different from Henry Christie, the author's well known long running series, but this second book featuring Jess is well written and the excitement keeps you reading. Very much recommended.

Sergeant Jessica Raker is very happy being back in the place she grew up, doing a job she loves.
The biggest fly in the ointment is Mags Horsefield. Mags went to school with Jess but is now the notorious boss of an organised crime gang and Jess is determined to bring her down.
When Jess is called to a minor incident at Wolf Fell Hall she is horrified to find Mags there, in the company of London gangster Tommy Moss, and whatever Mags and Tommy are up to, it's bound to mean trouble for Jess.
Jess and her team will need to work harder than ever if they are to stop the two crime bosses in their tracks, but first they will need to find out what they are planning.
This dark, gripping twisty thriller is a great read that holds your attention from the first right to the final word.

Death in Wolf Fell by Nick Oldham

Sergeant Jessica Raker has relocated her family from London to rural Lancashire. She is working on a crime ring responsible for drugs and thefts in the area , and finds out her school nemesis is the head of it which pushes her to bring it down .
Love books like this and I didn't read the first one but feel it could be read as a standalone.
A great story and character in Jessica Raker and a fast paced plot to keep you reading.

Yes. A highly enjoyable read and there must be a follow up to look out for.
Hadn’t read anything by Nick Oldham previously, so another to add to the ever expanding list

The second in the series, where Jess is the main police sergeant based in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire. Her main adversary, Mags is involved in local crime . They knew each other at school and their daughters are now schoolfriends too. Lots of action and fast paced, it is a good read. My only criticism is that the viewpoints change within chapters, which I found a bit confusing at first, though I quickly got used to it. Jess takes matters into her own hands a few times, but is settling in well with her team . This book is fine as a stand alone, though if you read the first one, you get to know her personal circumstances better. The plots and the police procedures all ring true and I like the interaction between the team.
The plot is well thought out and although there are quite a few characters, they are fairly easy to keep track of. I`m already looking forward to the next one in the series, thanks to Net Galley for the ARC

When is the next book coming out? I really want to know what happens next!
I really enjoyed this book: the plot was good, it was well written, the main character was easy to relate to and I read it in 2 sittings.
More please!

Thanks to the Severn House (a great publisher particularly for captivating procedurals) for this eARC

In Death on Wolf Fell by Nick Oldham, Sergeant Jessica Rake returns as she attempts to defeat Mag's, a clever cruel criminal mastermind.

Another suspenseful read from Oldham, best read if you read the 1st in the series as I found the storyline well developed, however the characters weren't quite as well developed. Personally I need to like the characters and relate to them to wholly enjoy the story. Had I not read earlier offering, I am not sure this told me enough about Jessica to be drawn to her and her motivations in this story.

Regardless, other characters were a bit more developed, for example one of the detectives had a particular hatred for house burglars, and knowing why made me really enjoy his character.

Regardless this is a tense and nail biting police procedural / mystery, and a solid 4 stars from this reviewer. I greatly enjoyed it.

Having read the first in the Sergeant Jessica Raker series, I was looking forward to the next instalment and it didn’t disappoint.

Jess used to be an armed response officer in the Met but, after an incident that put her life at risk, she moved back to Lancashire, where she grew up, and took up a sergeant vacancy for a sergeant there. Jess and Samira, a PCSO, become good friends as well as colleagues.

There is an ongoing story from the first book, where an old school classmate of Jess’ – Mags Horsefield – is the leader of an organised crime group (OCG). The police are called to Wolf Fell Hall but, when they turn up, they’re persuaded that there’s nothing wrong and the call was a mistake. Jess isn’t going to be fobbed off as easily as that, and the battle lines are drawn between her and Mags.

Brilliantly gripping and highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House for an advance reader copy in return for an honest review.

Sergeant Jessica Raker has relocated her family from London to rural Lancashire. There is an organized crime ring responsible for drugs and thefts in the area. She is determined to take them down, especially the female head, an enemy of hers from school days. Wolf Fell Hall, a stately home, seems to be the center of their activity and after an incident there, the thrilling chase is on, leaving victims in the wake.

A fan of British police procedurals, I wanted to try a new to me author. This is the second in a series by Nick Oldham. While I did not read the first one, this worked well as a stand alone.

This is a fast paced thriller with a good story line, action, and well developed characters. All this makes for an entertaining read. I liked Jessica, an all too human but dedicated individual struggling with some personal issues while trying to make a way for herself in her new position. I look forward to the next installment in this series.