Nick Oldham's "Bad Cops"

Nick Oldham was born in April 1956 in a house in the tiny village of Belthorn on the moors high above Blackburn, Lancashire.

After leaving college and spending a depressing year in a bank, he joined Lancashire Constabulary at the age of nineteen in 1975 and served in many operational postings around the county. Most of his service was spent in uniform, but the final ten years were spent as a trainer and a manager in police training. He retired in 2005 at the rank of inspector.

He lives with his partner, Belinda, on the outskirts of Preston.

Here Oldham shares a suggestion about who might play the lead in an adaptation of his new novel, Bad Cops:

With my first Henry Christie novel having been published some twenty-one years ago, the actors who I'd imagined in that role are probably a little bit long in the tooth now, so my ideas on that score have changed somewhat. That said, as a little anecdote, I did sell the TV rights (for about eight years) to a well-known production company in the 2000s for my novel Nightmare City. Needless to say, it was never made – however, I was privy to some of the names being suggested for the Christie role back then during production meetings, one of which was an emerging actor who went on to great fame and fortune playing James Bond (you'll just have to guess who that was!). However, the TV rights lapsed and it never happened, so I'm still in dreamland – and my current favourite for the Henry Christie role is Ioan Grufford, who's just about the right age and has impressed recently in a TV role and I know he'd be great in my lead role.

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--Marshal Zeringue