Stephen Booth
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Blood on the Tongue
Type of edition: Hardcover
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In the icy depths of a Peak District winter, DS Diane Fry finds herself with three dead bodies on her hands. Most baffling of all is the unidentified man found dumped by the roadside, who almost uninjured until the snow plough hit him.It's all too much for the depleted manpower of E Division to cope with, and Fry needs all the help she can get. But DC Ben Cooper, is following a cold trail of his own — and they don't come any colder than this one. On the snow-covered moors lies the burnt-out wreckage of a Second World War bomber, in which all but one crewman died.
What does the area's close-knit Polish community know about the long-ago crash? And could wartime secrets provide the key to an outbreak of present-day violence?
"Booth achieves the most satisfactory fusion yet of those elements which make him distinctive — atmospheric intensity, living landscape, strong central characterisation, all put at the service of a powerful, well plotted story."
— Reginald Hill, creator of the Dalziel and Pascoe series"Stephen Booth is one of the hottest crime writers around. Brilliantly mixing a baffling mystery with a psychological edge, this terrifying, twisting tale is sure to win him even more fans."
— Mystery and Thriller Club
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Black Dog
Type of edition: Paperback
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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 instincts make him so bent on obstructing the police investigation into Laura's murder? And what do he and his two fellow retired lead miners find to talk about on those long, balmy nights in the pub, hunched over their game of dominoes?
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 and his glamorous wife to the death of their precious daughter. The Vernons are holding something back. But what could be more important that the discovery of Laura's brutal murderer?
Ben Cooper, a young Detective Constable living with tragedy, has known the villagers all his life, but his instinctive feelings about the case are called into question by the arrival of Diane Fry, a ruthlessly ambitious DC from outside the 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.
"Stephen Booth's Black Dog sinks its teeth into you and doesn't let you go. Powerful, atmospheric and as dark as its title, it is a serious novel of character and relationships as well as an ingeniously plotted and neatly resolved detective story. A dark star may be born!"
— Reginald Hill, creator of the Dalziel and Pascoe series"Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter."
— Val McDermid, award-winning author of 'A Place of Execution'
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