‘HER skin prickled. It was a comfort to lean against the brocks of the cottage wall that had been warmed by the sun. She took deep breaths. Having this happen on her watch felt like an enormous failure. For years she had made sure that all went well and better than well, and now this.’

Nell Lewis is not long into a new job as governor of HMP Brackerley in Yorkshire, where she is tasked with transforming the renowned run-down facility - a former Borstal - into a modern, open prison for women.

But just as she is settling into her demanding new role, events take a dark turn when a man's body is discovered in the prison grounds. The mystery deepens still when one of their female inmates goes missing, ensuing a search across the country.

Nell is the central character in A Murder Inside, the latest novel from West Yorkshire-based crime writer Frances Brody.

Set in the 1960s, the novel forms a departure from Brody’s bestselling Kate Shackleton mysteries set in the 1920s, though they have in common a Yorkshire location and a female protagonist.

“Traditionally, classic crime stories end with the culprit being led away,” she says. “I thought it was about time I thought of what might come next and that led me to thinking about women in prison. I wanted a central character who would carry a story and decided on a woman prison governor.”

A job in the prison service is not for everyone. The training is hard, the environment is bleak and a thick skin is needed. But for Nell, helping prisoners is something she cares about deeply and she sets out to make a difference.

‘Sometimes when a person is alone a lot in a cell, it’s hard to make sense of thought,’ Nell tells her female charges as she introduces herself. ‘It will be different here. Don’t hesitate to talk. We all think of things we’ll say, and we don’t say them. We have conversations in our heads…But here, speak your thoughts if you want to. Don’t be shy.’

In a new and demanding job, Nell has enough on her plate, but needs to turn detective to try and resolve the sinister happenings at the prison before anyone else is put in danger.

Unearthing information that could help is anything but easy. ‘Nell had heard snippets. Ear-to-the-ground Bert Hastings had given her a name, but the service played close to the chest when it came to its own wrongdoers.’

Brody, who lived on Carrbottom Avenue, Wibsey, for 20 years, teaching at Bradford College for five years, was inspired to write novels after reading and listening to her mother's stories as she was growing up.

Sisters on Bread Street was inspired by an account of her mother’s early life.

‘My mother, Julia, was a great fan of murder stories,’ Brody writes on her website. ‘She would have been delighted with the Kate Shackleton series.

After I began to sell stories and plays to the BBC and to be commissioned by touring theatre companies, Julia was forever sending me plots. She would have gone overboard with suggestions for dastardly murders to challenge Kate.

Brody began her writing career in radio and has also written for theatre and television.

Her numerous awards include the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin Award for her novel Sisters on Bread Street. Her stage plays have been toured by several theatre companies and produced at Manchester Library Theatre, the Gate and Nottingham Playhouse.

The author lived in New York for a time before studying at Ruskin College, Oxford, and reading English Literature and History at York University.

Her first crime novel, Dying in the Wool - introducing Kate Shackleton - was published in 2009.

Living and working in Bradford influenced her writing. “Dying in the Wool is set against the background of a mill, and there were plenty of those. One of my next door neighbours had worked as a burler and mender,” she says.

“It wasn’t until I came to Bradford that I began to explore the Dales and find new locations. There was a poster proclaiming ‘Bradford! A surprising place’. It was.”

After 12 Kate Shackleton mysteries, fans of the likeable detective need not worry, she has not retired - there will be another mystery for her to solve next year.

Frances Brody will be in Waterstones today from 11am- to 1pm, as part of the shop’s celebrations marking 25 years in the Wool Exchange.

A Murder Inside, published by Piatkus will be published on October 28.