Stephen Booth
First British Edition HarperCollins (2003) |
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Blind to the Bones
It’s nearly May Day and deep in the Dark Peak lies the village of Withens. Not a tranquil place but one troubled by theft, vandalism, strange disappearances and now murder. A young man is killed -battered to death and left high on the desolate moors for the crows to find.
Ben Cooper, part of the investigating team, meets an impenetrable wall of silence from the man’s relatives who form Withens’ oldest family. The Oxleys are descendants of the first workers who tunnelled beneath the Peak. They stick to their own area, pass on secret knowledge through the generations, and guard their traditions from outsiders.
Detective Diane Fry is in Withens on other business - looking into the disappearance of Emma Renshaw. The student vanished into thin air two years ago, but her parents are convinced she is still alive and act accordingly... which doesn’t help Fry in her efforts to re-open the case following an ominous discovery in remote countryside.
But there are other secrets in Withens and more violence to come... The past is stretching, its shadow over the present, not just for the inhabitants of Withens but for Cooper and Fry as well.
`A dark star may be born’ Reginald Hill
`Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’ Val McDermid
‘A leading light of British crime writing’ Guardian
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First British Edition HarperCollins (2002) |
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Blood on the Tongue
It wasn’t the easiest way to commit suicide. Marie Tennent seemed just to have curled up in the freezing snow on Irontongue Hill and stayed there until her body was frosted over like a supermarket chicken. And hers isn’t the only death the police have to contend with either - not after the discovery of a baby in the wreckage of an old air-force bomber, and the body of a man dumped by a roadside.
As if having three bodies on her hands isn’t enough, snow and ice have left half of `E’ Division out of action and Diane Fry is forced to partner DC Gavin Murfin. She and Ben Cooper were never a match made in heaven, but next to Murfin, working with Ben starts to look like a dream.
He’s on a trail of his own, though - and one as cold as the Peak District in January. In an equally bitter winter in 1945 an RAF bomber crashed on Irontongue Hill killing everyone except the pilot, who walked away and disappeared. Now his grand-daughter, Alison Morrissey, is in Derbyshire desperate to clear his name, and Ben can’’t help taking an interest.
But is a fifty-year-old mystery really the best use of police time? Or does a vicious attack in the dark Edendale backstreets prove that the trail’s not quite as cold as he’d thought? Could the past be the only clue to present violence as an icy winter looks set to get even chillier?
`A very good novel, with the bleak background of the Peak District playing its part in creating an atmosphere of tension and isolation’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
`Best traditional British crime novel... lovely, complex plotting’ Jane Jakeman, lndependent (Books of the Year)
| British Pbk Original - Null (2001) |
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Black Dog
It's a long, hot summer in the Peak District, but the blue skies are darkened by police helicopters and the sound of birdsong is drowned out by the increasing hysteria of a full-scale search operation for a missing teenage girl. Laura Vernon is smart, sexy and the keeper of many secrets, but now she's lying dead in a thicket in the heart of the country.
Harry Dickinson found the body, but what makes him so bent on obstructing the police investigation into Laura's murder! Graham Vernon is a man who knows all about secrets and the police are at a loss to understand the attitude of this powerful businessman to the death of his only child. He's holding something back. But what could be more important than finding Laura's killer?
Ben Cooper has known the villagers all his life, but his instincts about the case are turned upside down by Diane Fry, an ambitious DC from another division. As Ben and Diane take the first steps in a complicated dance of suspicion, attraction and frustration, they 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.
`An exceedingly good first novel: wholly engrossing, it has well-drawn characters and a real sense of place ... one looks forward to his next book’ TJ Binyon, Evening Standard
`Stephen Booth creates’ a fine sense of place and atmosphere ... the unguessable solution to the crime comes as a real surprise’ Susanna Yager, Sunday Telegraph
`In this atmospheric debut, Stephen Booth’ makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’ Val McDermid
| Paperback - HarperCollins (2002) |
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Dancing With The Virgins
When she stops to mend a puncture at a remote spot in the Peak National Park, a lone woman cyclist is approached by a stranger. Later, her lifeless body is found sprawled inside the stone circle known as the NineVirgins, as if she were dancing.
She is the first victim, but not the only one. And for the detectives of 'E' Division it's a' worst case' scenario: all the women are from out of the area and it is almost certain that the killer is too - there seems to be nothing to link them together. The only possible clue lies in an earlier attack on a local solicitor. Could this have been the killer's first, failed, attempt? As a cloud of fear and anger hangs over the Derbyshire moorland, Ben Cooper and Diane Fry must find out fast.
`The complex relationship between [Cooper and Fry] is excellently drawn, and is combined with an intriguing plot and a real sense of place: Stephen Booth is an author to keep an eye on’ T.J. Binyon, Evening Standard
‘The plotting is storing and confident… On this form, Booth could soon be up there with the likes of Reginald Hill. If you read only one new crime writer this year, he’s your man’ Janice Young, Yorkshire Post
`Another first-rate mystery ... Booth is particularly good at creating credible characters’ SusannaYager, Sunday Telegraph
`Includes several sinuous turns and surprises’ Gerald Kaufman, Scotsman
About The Author
Stephen Booth was born in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley, and has remained rooted to the Pennines during his career as a newspaper journalist. He is well known as a breeder of Toggenburg Goats and includes among his other interests folklore, the Internet and walking in the hills of the Peak District, in which his novels are set. Blind to the Bones is the follow-up to the stunning psychological thrillers Blood on the Tongue, Dancing with the Virgins (short listed for the 2001 Gold Dagger Awards) and Black Dog.
He lives with his wife Lesley in a former Georgian dower house in Nottinghamshire.
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
Blind to the Bones
(HarperCollins,
2003)
Apr 03
Blood on the Tongue
(HarperCollins,
2002)
HarperCollins Pbk Apr 03
Black Dog
(
2001)
Dancing With The Virgins
(HarperCollins,
2001)
HarperCollins Pbk Apr 02
Blind to the Bones
WebPage: 
by Stephen Booth
