Crime... in the high Lake District fells...

The Bad Step, In the Cold of the Night, and Too Hot for Comfort make up the Cumbrian Fells trilogy of crime novels, published by Gritstone Publishing. Although sequential, each novel can also be read and enjoyed separately.

The Bad Step

For Nick Potterton, a high-flying London journalist who has opted out and moved to the Cumbrian countryside, the death of a runner at the foot of the rocky cliff called the Bad Step should be just another story to cover. The weather at the time had been atrocious and the rocks greasy and treacherous. But the longer Potterton investigates, the more disturbing questions he has to answer.Was the death as accidental as it seemed? Or is somebody hiding the full story of what happened at the Bad Step?

"A good straightforward read, an enjoyable page-turner... One test I apply to novels is 'Do I care enough about that will happen to the characters to continue reading?' With The Bad Step I did care..." - The Fellrunner

In the Cold of the Night

The staff at Greensleeves residential park are attempting the Three Peaks Challenge for charity but as they begin the walk up Scafell Pike their boss disappears. Next day his half-naked body is found in a moorland bog, miles off route.

The ‘Body in the Bog’ story becomes the local paper’s front page lead and it falls to Nick Potterton, once a successful London journalist but now a struggling part-time freelance, to investigate.

Too Hot for Comfort

Joan Arkle, a tireless climate change activist, is passionate about her beliefs. She has taken her campervan to the Lake District, to be able to live among the hills she loves. Here is ample scope for her trade as a wildlife photographer. Here, too, is an opportunity to make a difference by campaigning against global warming.

But her time in Cumbria proves challenging. Somehow her activities attract hostility. Increasingly she makes enemies.

And then, one evening on a quiet by-road, her campervan is firebombed...

Too Hot for Comfort takes its readers on a journey to solve a classic crime mystery. Who was responsible for firebombing the campervan?  And what precisely is Joan Arkle’s background? Both DI Chrissy Chambers of the Cumbria Police and Nick Potterton, once a successful London journalist but now a struggling local freelance, find themselves tussling with these questions.

Andrew’s writing thoughtfully probes not just the key subject of climate change but other pressing social issues, including among others the illegal drugs trade, revenge porn and social media trolling, and the economic plight of local newspapers. There is an international element too, in the shape of the young Catalan nationalist and environmental activist Lluïsa who finds herself in the Lake District while on the run from the Spanish police.

The books may be ordered from bookshops or via Gritstone's website. Ebook editions are also availabe in Kindle format.

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