THEY say the pen is mightier than the sword, but is it mightier than a truncheon?

Belthorn-born author Nick Oldham thinks so.

After 30 years' service as a police officer with Lancashire Constabulary, Nick turned his hand to writing and has forged a successful career as a crime novelist.

Telling the story of maverick Detective Chief Inspector Henry Christie over 12 books (so far) Nick has won himself an army of loyal fans.

THE plotlines of Nick Oldham's crime novels may seem far-fetched at times.

But the author reckons none of them are as strange as some of the things he saw working in the Lancashire Constabulary for 30 years.

"My books are an amalgamation of my experience in Lancashire Constabulary, my imagination and the organisation itself," said 52-year-old Nick, who now lives in Fulwood with his partner Belinda.

"When I wrote my first novel, A Time For Justice, I wanted to write about drug dealing and the mafia. The publisher said Well, does that go on in Lancashire?' and as it happened there was a trial at the time which involved the mafia and stolen cigarettes. An accountant from Chorley got murdered and it ended up with an American who was connected with the mafia being convicted of conspiracy to murder - and this is rural Lancashire we're talking about."

"It doesn't matter what you write about in fiction, it can never be as strange as fact."

Nick, who was born in Belthorn, near Blackburn, joined the Lancashire Constabulary at the age of 19 and worked all over the county in various roles, retiring as a detective after 30 years service in 2005.

Nick reckons his early days in the police force - where he gained a lot of inspiration for his main character Detective Chief Inspector Henry Christie - were very different to nowadays.

"You were given your beat and you were allowed to work it out however you wanted," said Nick. "Now it's a lot more professional. After The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 came in you couldn't just chuck people in cells or smack them anymore - not that I did - but a lot of detectives worked that way."

"It was a bit like Life On Mars, although that's exaggerated for TV. DIs were gods, they all dressed like Jason King. Now they're more like managers, which is good in some ways, but it's a shame in others."

Nick started writing while he was still in the force and his first novel was published in 1996.

"I always wanted to be a writer and I was brought up reading Ian Fleming, Jack Higgins and Frederick Forsyth. I thought what a great life they must have.' When I was 11 I used to watch The Man from Uncle and try to write spin-offs but they never got very far.

"In the 80s I wrote three books, which were all rejected. I wouldn't say I could paper the walls with rejection slips but I had a lot. It's difficult not to take it as a personal insult at first, but it's no good moping around for two months if someone tells you they don't like your work. You have to get back on and do it again.

"In the '90s I decided to have another stab at it and so I pinched what I thought were the best elements of the three books I already had and covered them with a new plot - that was A Time For Justice."

But despite Nick's assurances that his characters and plotlines weren't taken from the job, some of his colleagues thought otherwise.

"Former colleagues have come up to me and asked Are you writing another book about me?'" laughed Nick.

"Lots of my ex-colleagues read my books and I know that Pauline Clare, who was the first woman Chief Constable in the country at Lancashire, has read and enjoyed them."

But Nick insists his lead character, maverick DCI Henry Christie, isn't based on himself.

"Christie is some of the things I'd like to be and some things I wouldn't like to be," he said.

"He's quite brave but he's also quite reckless. He's a bit of a womaniser and that gets him into trouble."

Nick's books are written as page-turners.

"I don't like hanging about," he admitted. "I liken my books to the film Speed where the bus has to keep going at 60mph or it explodes. If I've written any purple prose about listening to the birds singing, it goes."

Nick loves his job and has no shortage of ideas.

"I feel quite lucky to be able to do what I've always wanted to do."

Nick's latest novel Screen of Deceit is out now. Visit www.amazon.co.uk