MAFIOSI and murder sound like the ingredients for a Francis Ford Copolla movie.

But they've been plucked from the imagination of local policeman-turned-novelist Nick Oldham, who is on the verge of releasing his first novel.

Nick, who lives in Longton, Preston, with his wife and baby son, has been a policeman all his working life.

But after years of writing short stories about the boys in blue, Nick was offered the chance to put one of his tales into print.

And the 40-year-old, who now works at the Lancashire Police training centre in Hutton, said the scenery of his first novel, A Time For Justice, is the Red Rose county.

He said: "The novel is about a mafia hitman who plants a bomb in a car, travelling on the M6.

"He seems out-of-reach but there's one policeman who is determined to prove himself and catch him." Nick has never had formal writing training.

He revealed: "My literary grounding has come from editing lengthy police reports.

"I'm very proud of my work and my colleagues think it's brilliant to have a novelist in their midst."

Nick is working on his second novel, about police corruption. He has decided to set the story in and around Blackburn but said it was not based on fact.

"I exaggerate everything I've seen during my time in the police force to make my novels interesting reading," he added. "They're not strictly fact."

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