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This page lists novels by Stephen Booth.

Black Dog

Stephen Booth

2000

"The long hot Peak District summer came to an end when they found Laura Vernon's body. But for local policeman Ben Cooper the work has just begun. His community is hiding a young 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 called in from another division, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive."

Dancing with the Virgins

Stephen Booth

2001

"The ring of cairns known as the Nine Virgins has stood on the windswept moors of Derbyshire for centuries. Now, as winter closes in, a tenth figure is added – a body – and a modern tragedy is added to the dark legend that surrounds the stones. There’s no shortage of suspects, each with their own guilty secret, but what DS Fry and DC Cooper lack is any kind of motive. As they search separately for answers, it seems the reasons for the strange behaviour of the moor’s inhabitants may lie somewhere in the past, in a terrible crime yet to be discovered."

Blood on the Tongue

Stephen Booth

2002

"Marie's was not the only body lying undiscovered under the Peak District snow that January morning – nor the first. In 1945, the wreckage of a bomber was found on the Hill, full of dead crewmen. The missing pilot was declared responsible, but why would a decorated hero desert? The only other survivor refuses to talk. A young Canadian woman has arrived to uncover the truth – the pilot was her grandfather. DC Ben Cooper is intrigued. Perhaps he can help? To his boss DS Fry, investigating two frozen bodies found on the moors, her colleague's interest is entirely unprofessional. But the past has a way of influencing the present and before either knows it, a long-cold trail in the dead of winter has grown dangerously hot."

Blind to the Bones

Stephen Booth

2003

"A small village in the Peak District, Withens is troubled by theft and vandalism, mostly generated by local family-from-hell, the Oxleys. Now it is the focus of a murder investigation – a man's body has been found on the bleak moors nearby, and the man is an Oxley. To crack the case, DC Ben Cooper must break open the delinquent clan. His boss, DS Diane Fry, is also in Withens. Grim new evidence has turned up in the case of a missing student but her parents refuse to believe she could be dead. The darkness in Withens's heart is growing. And things are only going to get nastier."

One Last Breath

Stephen Booth

2004

"The vast labyrinth of caverns, passages and subterranean rivers beneath the Peak District are a major tourist attraction. But this summer not all the darkness is underground, and not all the devils are folk legends. Mingling with the holidaymakers is a convicted killer, bent on revenge. Fourteen years ago Mansell Quinn was sentenced to life imprisonment for stabbing his lover to death. Now he's out and within a matter of hours his ex-wife is found dead – a new identity and a new home no safeguard against murder. Looking to the original case files for clues to the fugitive’s wherabouts, detectives Diane Fry and Ben Cooper discover there may be other potential victims out there. And as the son of the officer responsible for putting Quinn behind bars, Ben realizes that his own name could be high on the list."

The Dead Place

Stephen Booth

2005

"When a caller taunts the police with talk of a 'dead place' and the threat of an imminent killing, most think it's a sick hoax. But Detective Diane Fry is sure there's a murderer at work. And when the voice calmly invites them to meet the 'flesh eater', Fry fears it may be too late. Meanwhile, her colleague DC Ben Cooper is investigating Derbyshire's first case of body snatching, entering the macabre world of those whose lives revolve around the deceased and their disposal. But does an obsession with death make for a killer? And what horrors will greet them when they finally find the dead place?"

Scared to Live

Stephen Booth

2006

"An assassination in the night – an open window and three bullets from the darkness – the victim a harmless middle-aged woman. But can she really be quite as innocent as she seems? The death of Rose Shepherd swarms with questions – unlike the deaths of a woman and her two children in a house fire. A tragedy, yes, but an everyday one. Then DS Fry discovers a link between the two cases, a link that crosses the borders between nations, between right and wrong, between madness and sanity. She and Ben Cooper discover why some people are scared to live – and others are fated to die."

Dying to Sin

Stephen Booth

2007

"Building work at an isolated farm has unearthed more than just the usual remains… two human are discovered, seemingly buried years apart. With little forensic evidence to go on, Detectives Diane Fry and Ben Cooper have to look back into the farm's history, where they uncover decades of abuse of migrant workers. Is the truth to be found somewhere in this piteous history? Or does the answer lie elsewhere, hidden in the ground, and still waiting to be discovered?"

The Kill Call

Stephen Booth

2009

"On a rain-swept Derbyshire moor, hounds from the local foxhunt find the body of a well-dressed man whose head has been crushed. Yet an anonymous caller reports the same body lying half a mile away. Called in to investigate the discovery, detectives DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper become entangled in the violent world of hunting and hunt saboteurs, horse theft and a little-known sector of the meat trade. As Fry follows a complex trail of her own to unravel the shady business interests of the murder victim, Cooper realizes that the answer to the case might lie deep in the past. History is everywhere around him in the Peak District landscape – particularly in the ‘plague village’ of Eyam, where an outbreak of Black Death has been turned into a modern-day tourist attraction. But, even as the final solution is revealed, both Fry and Cooper find themselves having to face up to the disturbing reality of the much more recent past."

Lost River

Stephen Booth

2010

"A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined by the tragic drowning of an eight-year-old girl in picturesque Dovedale. For Detective Constable Ben Cooper, a helpless witness to the tragedy, the incident is not only traumatic, but leads him to become involved in the tangled lives of the Neilds, the dead girl's family. As he gets to know them, Cooper begins to suspect that one of them is harbouring a secret - a secret that the whole family might be willing to cover up. Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry has a journey of her own to make - a journey back to her roots. As she finds herself drawn into an investigation of her own among the inner-city streets of Birmingham, Fry realises there is only one person she can rely on to provide the help she needs. But that man is Ben Cooper, and he's back in Derbyshire, where his suspicions are leading him towards a shocking discovery on the banks of another Peak District river."

The Devil's Edge

Stephen Booth

2011

Dead and Buried

Stephen Booth

2012

"In the heart of summer, in the dead of night, something wakes you. The house is quiet. The children are sleeping. The kitchen is empty. Except for the body on the floor. A series of brutal home invasions is terrorizing the Peak District. Until now, the burglars haven't left a clue. This time, they've left a corpse. But as the death toll rises, two intrepid cops begin to suspect that the robberies - and the murders - are not what they seem. Beneath the scorching summer sun, a dangerous game is in play . . . and a merciless killer is hiding in plain sight."

Already Dead

Stephen Booth

2013

"A summer of endless rain in the Peak District leaves the officers of Derbyshire's CID with a problem. They have discovered a man's body lying in shallow water, but torrential rain has swollen the rivers and flooded the roads, making travel difficult and forensic examination impossible. And that's not all. The absence of DS Ben Cooper, on extended leave after an arson attack, has left a serious gap. DS Diane Fry is a reluctant temporary replacement, but now their makeshift team is about to be tested to the limit. The fatal events of one damp August night are likely to remain shrouded in mystery if they can't track down a car glimpsed only as a dark outline in the rain by a passer-by. As the rain turns into a deluge, loyalties among the officers will be put under intolerable strain as they try to solve their toughest case yet. And that's before it emerges that Ben Cooper is not at home, but has vanished into thin air."

The Corpse Bridge

Stephen Booth

2014

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The Murder Road

Stephen Booth

2015

"For the Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its handful of residents are accustomed to being cut off from the world by snow or floods. But when a lorry delivering animal feed is found jammed in the narrow lane, with no sign of the driver except for a blood-stained cab, it's the beginning of something much more sinister."

Secrets of Death

Stephen Booth

2016

" Residents of the Peak District are used to tourists descending on its soaring hills and brooding valleys. However, this summer brings a different kind of visitor to the idyllic landscape, leaving behind bodies and secrets. A series of suicides throughout the Peaks throws Detective Inspector Ben Cooper and his team in Derbyshire's E Division into a race against time to find a connection to these seemingly random acts - with no way of predicting where the next body will turn up. Meanwhile, in Nottingham Detective Sergeant Diane Fry finds a key witness has vanished... But what are the mysterious Secrets of Death? And is there one victim whose fate wasn't suicide at all?"