Away From a Manger

A quick-read mystery introducing Owen Irvine, the Lake District shepherd-cum-detective hero of J J Salkeld's best-selling A Natural Detective series. Set in the mid-1980s, this entertaining story concerns the theft of the baby Jesus himself. All right, it's just a small wooden figure from the church's nativity scene, but as far as the vicar is concerned dark forces must surely be at play in the Kentmere valley this dark midwinter...

This cozy short story will be a must-read for existing Salkeld fans - not least because one of the most popular characters from The Lakeland Murders has a starring role - and it's also a prequel to the Owen Irvine books, but set thirty years before the start of A Natural Detective. And it answers one of the most significant questions about Irvine's past: how was it that he ever even managed to join Cumbria Constabulary in the first place, despite his father's apparently implacable opposition?