PROSECUTION lawyer Neil White has published his first novel.

And the crime-fighter turned crime writer has already planned his next job with his second book due out next year.

Neil, 39, who regularly prosecutes at Blackburn and Hyndburn magistrates courts, has had a lifelong interest in crime and criminology which ultimately dictated his career path.

But his literary exploits, starting with Salem, allow him to produce fiction from fact and decide the final verdict.

He has even set up his own publishing company TSJ Publishing to get the book into print.

"It has been a learning curve but one I have enjoyed," said the father of three whose wife Allison is also a lawyer. "To see my efforts finally in print is very rewarding."

Salem is a mystery thriller which follows the efforts of Joe Kinsella, a small-town, English private detective hired to search for Sarah Goode who has gone missing in Boston. But the American police are also on the trail of Sarah after her boyfriend is found murdered.

"I have tried to draw on my experience of real crime to have hopefully brought some realism into the story," said Neil, of Preston.

"Obviously, it is every writer's dream to pen a best-seller and I have plenty of ideas for future volumes."

Copies of Salem can be obtained direct from Neil on the website www.crimewriting.co.uk, on Amazon, or from good book shops quoting ISBN 0954753003.