Black Dog - Softcover

Booth, Stephen

3.83

5,967 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671786040 ISBN 13: 9780671786045

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2001

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As helicopters search Northern England's Peak District for fifteen year-old Laura Vernon, Detective Constable Ben Cooper quietly dreads the worst. And when her body is found in the woods, Cooper's investigation begins with a short list of markedly uncooperative suspects: retired miner Harry Dickinson, whose black Labrador discovered Laura's body, and Laura's wealthy parents. Uneasily teamed with ambitious newcomer Detective Constible Diane Fry, Cooper tests a town's family ties, friendships, and loyaties -- and finds that in order to understand the present, they must unearth the past.

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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:

"The Boston Globe "Black Dog skillfully renders the small-village atmosphere of England's Peak District quite effectively while weaving a good puzzle into local custom....[Booth's] sense of smell and sound is a gift.

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