The Amen Cadence by JJ Salkeld Amazon Kindle, £1.99

This is the fourth eBook in Cumbrian crime writer J J Salkeld’s Carlisle-set Border City Blues series.

The new novella brings DS Samantha ‘Pepper’ Wilson’s battle with local criminal king-pin Dai Young to a dramatic and bloody conclusion. And it all becomes intensely personal for Pepper, as she faces up to personal tragedy, intimate betrayal, and an enemy of apparently bottomless evil.

J J Salkeld is the pen name of Richard Simpson, a former journalist and documentary director, whose detective fiction has featured heavily in Amazon sales charts since his first novel, Separated at Death, was published in early 2013.

He said: ‘I’m delighted that my books are so popular with readers, not just at home in Cumbria but right across the UK, and also in North America, Australia and even Japan. But crime fiction set in northern Europe, from Iceland and Scandinavia to Scotland and the far north of England, seems to strike a powerful chord with readers. ‘Northern Noir’ is a real phenomenon in the world of crime fiction, and I’m really pleased to be doing my bit in raising the (imaginary) body count here in Cumbria."