Natasha Cooper at Tangled Web UK

Page Updated: 05/02/2008

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Natasha Cooper - Page 2

Paperback - Pocket Books (2002)

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2002)

Out of the Dark
An eight-year-old boy comes running out of the dark to find barrister Trish Maguire one wet Sunday night. Just before he can get to her, he’s knocked over by a skidding car. Fighting to save his life, the casualty team find Trish’s name and address sewn into his clothes. The police are convinced that he looks like her and must be her son. Only Trish knows he can’t be. But is he connected with one of her clients, or could he be a blood relation? And who has sent him to Trish?
Recovering from a miscarriage, about to go to court with a career-changing commercial case, missing her partner, George, who is 5000 miles away, the last thing Trish wants is responsibility for a lost boy. But there is no one else. Her search for his identity takes her to a brutal inner-city housing estate, where she has to confront not only the reality of life for people whose Giros cannot be made to last the week, but also many of her own fears. News of a particularly brutal murder reaches her only hours before she learns that her erratic father is the chief suspect. It will take all her resolution and integrity to pick her way through the maze.
The gulfs between rich and poor, between the heroically honest and those for whom life and the law are always negotiable, rip off the last of Trish’s self-protective blinkers. There are choices to be made and lives to be saved.
The fourth in Natasha Cooper’s Trish Maguire series, Out of the Dark is a touching and gripping novel that looks unflinchingly at some of the most destructive crimes.
‘Trish is cool, clever and charismatic’ Guardian
'There's a warmth and sincerity in this series which, combined with good characterisation, raises it above others in the genre' Sunday Telegraph
`Cooper at her considerable best; aficionados need not hesitate ... her skills in this kind of material remain non-pareil ... presses all the right buttons and ensures total reader involvement. Another winner’ Crime Time
`Rattles along at an exhilarating clip, with several thrilling plot twists’ Sunday Tribune
`Like Minette Walters, Cooper writes methodical, meticulous crime’ Daily Mirror

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (2000)

Paperback - Pocket Books (2001)

Prey to All
See Review by John Boyles

'It's about a family on the edge and the dynamic that went horribly awry. Two people are dead, another’s incarcerated for life, and one is living in slightly bizarre triumph... Interested yet Trish?'

Too intrigued to resist, Trish Maguire joins the fight to free Deb Gibbert from a life sentence for the murder of her father.
Trish's own father is lying in intensive care after a heart attack, she has a heavy workload and a full life, but Deb’s agonising story pulls her deeper and deeper into the campaign. Having visited the prison to hear Deb’s account of what happened the night her father died, Trish cannot believe she is a killer.
But nearly everyone else thinks she is, including the QC who defended her in court and some of the people closest to her. And Deb's two staunchest supporters, high profile MP Malcolm Chaze and Trish's old friend TV producer Anna Grayling, have their own, private, reasons to want her free.
As she struggles to fulfil her obligations, Trish's doubts begin to cloud her judgment. But her nerves are stretched to breaking point when one of Deb's supporters is shot dead at his own front door. Suddenly, it is clear to Trish that Deb's case is far from black and white.
With her fierce belief in justice, and her even fiercer belief in the absolute need for the strong to protect the weak, Trish finds herself in an emotional maze that seems to have no exit.
Prey to All is as rich in compassion as it is in anger, and the interwoven subplots touch on issues that affect us all.
'An enthralling book' Val McDermid
‘Convincing and hard-hitting, [Cooper’s novels] explore how ordinary people get caught up in appalling events’ The Times
‘Prey to All combines Cooper’s own experience with ingenious imagination and makes an absorbing, gripping and eerie read’ Birmingham Post

Paperback - Pocket Books (2000)

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (1999)

Fault Lines
The brilliant and idealistic Trish Maguire returns in a devastating case of corruption and conspiracy at the very heart of local government.
Social worker Kara Huggate is set to be Trish Maguire's star witness in a case of alleged abuse at a children's home, Over the months preparing for trial, Kara and Trish have become friends, so when she doesn't turn up at court Trish knows something is wrong.
Returning from court, Trish finds the police waiting for her in her chambers with the news that Kara has been murdered. The ferocity and sheer brutality of the crime shocks even the hardened officers investigating the case. It looks like the work of a serial rapist and killer who has never been caught, but there are inexplicable features that hint at a copy cat.
In an ironic twist of fate, Trish receives a letter from Kara, posted the night of her death, asking for her help over the unfair dismissal of a colleague, Blair Collons. Unable to refuse such a request, Trish decides to meet Blair. However, paranoid and strangely obsessive, he is such an unconvincing witness that she cannot believe his story - or understand why Kara cared so much about him. But with the memory of Kara's compassion fresh in her mind, Trish finds herself sucked into Blair's unhappy story, with potentially devastating consequences.
Fault Lines is a tense and disturbing examination of the power of corruption and the lengths to which people will go to protect themselves.
Praise for Natasha Cooper
'In Fault Lines, Natasha Cooper brings a keen emotional intelligence to bear on the dark side of contemporary life. Barrister Trish Maguire is a heroine for the new millennium - competent, tenacious and adamant in her pursuit of the justice that sometimes eludes the law' Val McDermid
'A thoroughly entertaining read' Daily Mirror
'Natasha Cooper writes well-plotted detective novels, with a serious-minded heroine' Daily Mirror
'Nice one Natasha' Irish Times
'An involving and intelligent writer' Times Literary Supplement
'A tense and eerily topical story of character vulnerability and pain' She

First British Edition Simon & Schuster (1998)

Paperback - Pocket Books (2005)

Paperback
Simon & Schuster (1999)

Creeping Ivy
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
When Antonia Weblock's four-year-old daughter, Charlotte, vanishes from the local playground, the police pull out all the stops to find her. But even as they search, Antonia finds herself vilified by the press for putting her child at risk for the sake of her successful City career.
Desperately in need of support she turns to her cousin, Trish Maguire, for help. As a barrister specialising in cases involving children, Trish knows exactly what can happen to them at the hands of abusive adults, and she is determined to do anything to find out what has happened. But suddenly Trish finds herself at the top of the list of suspects and her search for answers becomes even more urgent, as both Charlotte's life and her own freedom are threatened.
'The topicality of Creeping Ivy is not the only thing that makes this absorbing and carefully constructed novel so readable' Times Literary Supplement
'A perceptive and pessimistic look at modern family relationships and a critique of the criminal justice system' Times
'The vulnerability of a child in a world of edgily competitive adults is poignantly evident' Times Literary Supplement
'A tense and eerily topical story of character vulnerability and pain' She

Hardback
Simon & Schuster (1997)

Sour Grapes
Sour Grapes is the latest novel from Natasha Cooper: a tightly plotted, entertaining mystery that provides a stunning and fascinating insight into the machinery of deceit. Prompted by a lecture she heard at the Crime Writers Association by a Forensic Pathologist from the Maudsley Hospital, Natasha Cooper asks How do you tell if someone's really lying? In pursuit of material for a thesis on lie-detection, young post-graduate Emma Gnatche encounters a City accountant serving four years in prison for a fatal hit and run, he insists was nothing to do with him. During a police interview, he had claimed his car had been stolen before the crash, later admitting he had been the driver. Now he is insisting that his first version was true. So who's telling the truth? The task is to find out when he started lying - and why. But is there such a thing as an accurate lie-detector? As Willow King begins to untangle the complex web of deceit that surrounds the crime, she has to follow strands of manipulation, violence, fear and terrible unhappiness before reaching the shocking truth.