One Last Breath by
Stephen Booth
hbk out July 04
Published by HarperCollins
at £10
This is the fifth in Booth's popular Peak District series which features local copper
Ben Cooper and prickly incomer DI Diane Fry. After serving fourteen years for
killing his lover, Mansell Quinn is released and within hours his ex-wife is murdered.
Quinn is known to be in the area, and Cooper and Fry sift through the original case
notes in an effort to establish where he might be heading - or hiding. It is summer and
the Peaks are busy with tourists, making it easy for one man to mingle unnoticed. The
labyrinth of caves and tunnels beneath the hills are rich in folklore and provide
attractions for the visitors as well as endless scope for someone to hole up. Cooper
discovers that his own father (now deceased) had been involved in the investigation
and present at the scene of the crime. If Quinn is seeking vengeance on those who
sent him down, then Cooper may well be targeted in place of his father.
An intimate knowledge and great affection for the Peak District inform the books and
it is a pleasure to read about the locale. Booth also explores how a landscape impacts
upon those who live and work in it. The relationship between Cooper and Fry is edgy
and intriguing as ever and with a strong and twisty plot Booth delivers some of the
best crime fiction in the UK.
Manchester Evening News 24.7.04
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
One Last Breath by
Stephen Booth
