Стивен Бут – лучшие произведения

Неподалеку от маленького городка в Дербишире найдена мертвой дочь одного из самых богатых местных жителей. Поначалу ни улик, ни тем более свидетелей обнаружить не удалось. Однако констебль Бен Купер – местный до мозга костей, знает округу и живущих в ней людей как свои пять пальцев, и догадывается, где и что искать. Как раз в это время ему дали в напарники нового сотрудника – констебля Диану Фрай, талантливую, честолюбивую, а главное, обладающую свежим взглядом. Так двое детективов приступили к расследованию одного из самых невероятных преступлений в истории Дербишира…

Убийство тридцатилетней Дженни Уэстон, чье тело найдено возле древнего каменного круга, именуемого Девять Девственниц, открывает серию зловещих событий на ферме «Рингхэмский хребет». Загадки множатся одна за другой. Чей нож изуродовал лицо местной жительницы Мегги Крю, после нападения потерявшей память? Какое отношение к случившемуся имеют двое юных бродяг, живущих в сломанном фургоне, который застрял в заброшенном карьере? Как связаны друг с другом смотрительская служба местного национального парка и жестокие собачьи бои, нелегально проводящиеся ночной порой на территории фермы? Почему внезапно сводит счеты с жизнью владелец «Рингхэмского хребта» Уоррен Лич? Каковы обстоятельства смерти дочери Мегги Крю Роз Дэниелс – страстной защитницы прав животных?..Клубок таинственных происшествий в округе запутывается все туже, погружая читателя в атмосферу пугающе-двусмысленных криминально-психологических загадок.

В начале января в округе Идендейла нашли сразу два мертвых тела – мужчины и женщины. Расследование показало, что в обоих случаях было совершено убийство. Сержант полиции Диана Фрай и ее команда принялись искать улики и подозреваемых. В это время в местную полицию обратилась гражданка Канады, разыскивающая своего деда, военного летчика, пропавшего без вести в этих краях еще во Вторую мировую. Ее запрос был проигнорирован – у местной полиции нет ни людей, ни времени на такие старые дела. Но историей заинтересовался констебль Бен Купер. Несмотря на недовольство Дианы, он начал свое расследование, не подозревая, что именно оно способно привести его к разгадке тайны нынешнего двойного убийства…

The villagers of Withens are dying. Emma Renshaw vanished two years ago, her body never found. Now her former housemate has been bludgeoned, his remains discovered near a deserted railway tunnel. Is there a link between the two? While Detective Sergeant Diane Fry focuses on Emma’s possible murder, her colleague Ben Cooper investigates a series of burglaries. Only one family seems exempt: the Oxleys. Descended from workmen who built the ancient tunnels beneath the village, they stick close to their own–and keep their secrets closer. Caught in the tangle of death and deception are Cooper and Fry. Their personal history and professional relationship have blurred before, and will again, as their cases converge in the most unsettling ways. . .

Dark, intense and utterly compelling, ‘Black Dog’ was an extraordinary first novel from a writer who has rapidly become the most promising crime author to emerge in the genre in years.
‘Where Cooper stood was remote and isolated… but the smell that lingered under the trees was of blood'
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…

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.

Brutal acts of firestarting have ravaged the Peak District, and now a new wave of moorland infernos sweeps across the national park. For DS Ben Cooper, the blazes are best left to the firefighters, even with the arsonists still at large. But when an intruder breaks into an abandoned pub, Cooper is on the case - and he swiftly unearths a pair of grim surprises. The first is evidence of a years-old double homicide. And the second is a corpse, newly dead... What links the three deaths? Where are the missing bodies? Who is responsible - and how do the raging fires fit in? For Cooper and his rival DI Diane Fry, it's the most twisted investigation of their lives... and with an ingenious killer pulling the strings, it could also be their last. Drenched in atmosphere and danger, Stephen Booth's relentless new thriller builds to a shock finale that will catch even the most seasoned suspense readers off guard.

The old Corpse Bridge is the route taken for centuries by mourners from villages on the western fringes of Derbyshire to a burial ground across the River Dove, now absorbed into the landscaped parkland of a stately home. When Earl Manby, the landowner, announces plans to deconsecrate the burial ground to turn it into a car park for his holiday cottages, bodies begin to appear once again on the road to the Corpse Bridge. Is there a connection with the Earl's plans? Or worse, is there a terrifying serial killer at work? Back in his job after the traumatic events of previous months, Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper knows that he must unravel the mystery of the Corpse Bridge if he's going to be able to move on with his life. As the pressure builds, Ben doesn't know who he can trust and, when the case reaches breaking point, he has to make a call that could put everything - and everyone - at risk...

Steeped in the atmosphere of the stunning Peak District, Secrets of Death is master crime writer Stephen Booth's most daring and clever Cooper & Fry thriller yet. A beautiful place to die . . . 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?

The dramatic, gripping new Cooper & Fry crime thriller from bestseller Stephen Booth sees the stunning Peak District prove fatal for one walking party. They knew the danger, but they went anyway... "Almost before she'd stopped breathing, a swirl of mist snaked across her legs and settled in her hair, clutching her in its chilly embrace, hiding her body from view. It would be hours before she was found." The mountain of Kinder Scout offers the most incredible views of the Peak District, but when thick fog descends there on a walking party led by enigmatic Darius Roth, this spectacular landscape is turned into a death trap that claims a life. For DI Ben Cooper however, something about the way Faith Matthew fell to her death suggests it was no accident, and he quickly discovers more than one of the hikers may have had reason to murder their companion. To make things worse, his old colleague DS Diane Fry finds herself at centre of an internal investigations storm that threatens to drag Cooper down with it.

For decades, Pity Wood Farm has been a source of employment for poor workers passing through Rakedale, migrants with lives as abject as the labour they sought. But now it seems a far worse fate may have befallen some of those who came upon this isolated community. Routine building work at the farm has unearthed a grisly discovery: a human hand preserved in clay. When police dig up the farmyard, they find not one, but two bodies – and several years between their burials. With pressure from a new Superintendent and scant forensic evidence to aid them, DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper have only the memories of local people to piece together the history of the farm. In a case as cold as the ground, Cooper finds himself drawn to a desperate theory: that somewhere, there lies a third body which holds the key to these dreadful crimes.

A death in the family-from-hell bring Detectives Fry and Cooper to a remote and unfriendly rural community in their fourth psychological thriller.
'And as it grew dark, Withens became almost entirely silent. Except for the screaming.'
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…

In 'The Devil's Edge', Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry investigate a series of terrifying and lethal home invasions in the Peak District. After Cooper's brother shoots a burglar, Fry takes the reins, and Cooper must watch his rival pursue the case to its bitter end.

For the tiny Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its 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. Detective Inspector Ben Cooper must attempt to unravel the history of secrets, lies and loyalties that will lead to the truth behind the missing lorry driver. But the residents of Shawhead are not used to having strangers in their midst and, while getting to grips with staff changes in E Division, Ben's way forward is far from clear. Will he turn to Detective Sergeant Diane Fry, now working in Special Operations at Nottingham's Major Crimes Unit, for help when the case takes a dramatic turn? A truly outstanding mystery that's packed with foreboding Peak District atmosphere, The Murder Road is a suspense-filled read that reaches a stunningly clever conclusion.

“This killing will be a model of perfection. An accomplishment to be proud of. And it could be tonight or maybe next week. But it will be soon. I promise.” The anonymous phone calls indicate a disturbed mind with an unnatural passion for death. Cooper and Fry are hoping against hope that the caller is just a harmless crank having some sick fun. But the clues woven through his disturbing messages point to the possibility of an all-too-real crime . . . especially when a woman vanishes from an office parking garage. But it’s the mystery surrounding an unidentified female corpse left exposed in the woods for over a year that really has the detectives worried. Whoever she might have been, the dead woman is linked to the mystery caller, whose description of his twisted death rituals matches the bizarre manner in which the body was found. And the mystery only deepens when Cooper obtains a positive I.D. and learns that the dead woman was never reported missing and that she definitely wasn’t murdered. As the killer draws them closer into his confidence, Ben and Diane learn everything about his deadly obsessions except what matters most: his identity and the identity of his next victim. . . .

Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry must uncover the secrets of two grim murder scenes in England's Peak District--one inexplicable...and the other unspeakable. How do you investigate the murder of a woman without a life? That is the challenge facing Cooper and Fry when a reclusive agoraphobic is found shot to death in her home by someone who took an exceptional amount of care in executing her murder. With no friends, no family, and virtually no contact with the outside world, the dead woman may have simply been an unlucky victim of a random homicide. Or was she hiding from a past that had finally come out of hiding to kill her? At virtually the same time, a raging house fire claims the life of a young mother and two of her children. But as the debris is cleared, troubling questions remain in the ashes. Among them, how did the fire start, where was the husband at two a.m. the day of the blaze, and was it really the fire that killed his family? Now, as Cooper faces the reemergence of a dark secret he'd hoped to forget, and Fry copes with problems both personal and professional, a horrific possibility begins to take shape: what if the two investigations are somehow connected? A killer is stalking the Peak District whose motives are a mystery and whose methods are unpredictable. And his next victims could very well be the only two cops who can stop him.

Guilt, sacrifice and redemption in a freezing Derbyshire winter in this tense psychological thriller from the acclaimed author of ‘Black Dog’.
'The sun had dropped over the edge of Irontongue Hill so that the snow-covered moor was in shadow … but Marie Tennent would never see the dawn.'
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 …

A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined by the tragic drowning of an eight-year-old girl among crowds of visitors in the tourist hotspot of 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.

A summer of endless rain in the Peak District leaves the officers of Derbyshire's criminal investigation department with a problem. They have discovered a man's body lying in shallow water, but torrential downpours have swollen the rivers and flooded the roads, making travel difficult and forensic examination impossible. And that's not all. The absence of Detective Cooper, on extended leave after an arson attack, has left a serious gap. Detective 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 passerby. When the drops turn 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 Detective Cooper is not at home recuperating, but has vanished into thin air . .

Set in England’s legendary Peak District, Stephen Booth’s acclaimed mysteries tell tales of men and women under siege by both ordinary life and extraordinary crime. Now, in a stunning, fascinatingly intelligent novel, Booth’s uneasy young policeman, Ben Cooper, encounters an enigma that begins with a shocking murder and a victim’s . . . One Last Breath Around the ancient cave system in Derbyshire are thronging tourists, a medieval castle, and the thriving town of Castleton. With its underground tunnels and caverns, it’s the perfect place for a man to hide–or vanish. Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry are looking for such a man, one who is on a rampage of revenge. After thirteen years in prison, Mansell Quinn has emerged a man enraged. Hours after violating his parole, Quinn is the chief suspect in a fresh murder. And his original sin–the brutal killing of his lover–still haunts the valley. Because Quinn has always maintained his innocence, the people who lined up against him then are in dire danger now. Ben may be one of those people, for he is the son of the cop who had arrested Quinn thirteen years earlier. But while his department races to find Quinn, Ben wonders if the man was indeed guilty of the first crime. Even when another new victim is found, Ben stubbornly clings to the old case–and makes himself an open target for a killer. For Ben, the real story of Mansell Quinn is as hidden as the caves beneath them. His search for answers will lead him on a twisting, harrowing journey through that maze of darkness–into the shocking light of truth. From the Hardcover edition.