Black Dog (Cooper and Fry) - Softcover

Booth, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0957237901 ISBN 13: 9780957237902

Publisher: Westlea Books, 2012

Synopsis

The first novel in the multiple award-winning Cooper and Fry series, set in England's beautiful and atmospheric Peak District.

It's been a long, hot summer in the Peak District national park. But summer comes to an end when the body of missing teenager Laura Vernon is found.

For young police detective Ben Cooper, the work has just begun. His community is hiding a girl's killer, and a past as dark as the Derbyshire night. It seems Laura was the keeper of secrets beyond her years and, in a case where no-one is innocent, everyone is a suspect.

But Cooper's local knowledge and instincts are about to face an even greater challenge. The ambitious DC Diane Fry has been transferred from a nearby city, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive...

"Dark, intense and utterly compelling", Black Dog is an extraordinary first novel from a writer who has rapidly become one of the UK's most successful crime writers.

*Winner of the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel of 2000

*Finalist for the Anthony Award for Best First Mystery of 2000

"Suspenseful and supremely engaging. Booth does a wonderful job." - Los Angeles Times

"Simultaneously classic, contemporary and haunting." - Mysterious Bookshop, New York

"A brilliant writer who gets everything - atmosphere, character, plot - just right. This book took my breath away." - Black Orchid Bookshop, New York

"An atmospheric, psychological stunner." - The Bookseller

"Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter." - Val McDermid, award-winning crime novelist

"Black Dog sinks its teeth into you and doesn't let you go. A dark star is born!" - Reginald Hill, creator of Dalziel and Pascoe

"Black Dog is an exceedingly good first novel. Wholly engrossing." - London Evening Standard

"This is intelligent crime fiction at its best. It was a book I found impossible to put down." - Sherlock Magazine

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:

"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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Westlea Books
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0957237901
• ISBN 13: 9780957237902
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 386