Black Dog (Cooper and Fry Crime Series, Book 1) - Softcover

Booth, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 000721037X ISBN 13: 9780007210374

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2000

Synopsis

Dark, intense and utterly compelling, Black Dog is an extraordinary thriller from the most promising new author to emerge in the genre in recent years.

When smart, sexy teenager Laura Vernon goes missing one long, hot summer in the Peak District, local police mount a full-scale search operation. But it’s retired lead miner Harry Dickinson who finally discovers Laura’s body, and he seems bent on obstructing their investigation. Even her parents are holding something back. But what could be more important than finding Laura’s murderer?

Ben Cooper, a young DC living with tragedy, has known the villagers all his life, but his instinctive feelings about the case are called into question by the arrival of Diane Fry, a ruthlessly ambitious DC from another division. As the investigation twists and turns, Ben and Diane discover that to understand the present, they must also understand the past – and in a world where no one is entirely innocent, pain and suffering can be the only outcome.

About this title

Review:

Stephen Booth's first novel Black Dog is an impressive portrait of two sorts of policing. Ben is a local man who knows everybody and perhap scares too much, while Diane is a stranger wherever she goes and is perhaps too cold-blooded; when they find themselves rivals for promotion, and colleagues on a difficult case, breaking strain is going to be reached sooner or later. Spoiled, young Laura Vernon is missing, soon to be found dead, and the question soon arises: is she only, or even, the first? Retired quarryman Harry found the body and perhaps knows more than he is letting on, but he will do anything rather than tell the police more than he has to. The Vernons' gardener is missing, a thuggish young man rather too fond of showing off his muscles--what does he know? What went on at the Vernons' smart cocktail parties and what do Harry and his friends talk about over their beer in the pub? This is an ingenious dark little mystery in which there may be solutions to problems, but no cures; Ben and Diane are two of the more interestingly flawed young cops of recent crime fiction. --Roz Kaveney

Review:

‘Stephen Booth’s Black Dog sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let you go. A dark star may be born!’
Reginald Hill

‘In this atmospheric debut, Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’
Val McDermid

‘An exceedingly good first novel: wholly engrossing, it has well-drawn characters and a real sense of place’
T.J. Binyon, Evening Standard

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 000721037X
• ISBN 13: 9780007210374
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 375