Cooper and Fry Crime
12 primary works
Book 1
Ben Cooper, a young DC 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 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.
Book 2
Book 2
Dancing with the Virgins (Cooper and Fry Crime Series, Book 2)
by Stephen Booth
And what of the farmer, Warren Leach, on whose land the Nine Virgins stand: a desperate man whose own children fear him. Against the dramatic backdrop of the White Peak, Ben and Diane struggle to make sense of a murder that seems motiveless. But the moors have witnessed more bloodshed than either realize, and violence is to beget more violence before the answer is found.
Book 3
Guilt, sacrifice and redemption in a freezing Peak District winter in this tense psychological thriller from the acclaimed author of Black Dog: ‘A dark star may be born!’ Reginald Hill
It wasn’t the easiest way to commit suicide. But Marie Tennent seemed to have just 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 Airforce bomber, and the body of a man dumped by a roadside.
As if 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 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?
Book 3
Guilt, sacrifice and redemption in a freezing Peak District winter in this tense psychological thriller from the acclaimed author of Black Dog: `A dark star may be born!’ Reginald Hill
It wasn’t the easiest way to commit suicide. Marie Tennent seemed to have just 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 Airforce bomber, and the body of a man dumped by a roadside.
As if 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 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?
Book 4
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…
Book 5
An escaped convict threatens more than the summer tourist trade in the gripping fifth thriller featuring Detectives Fry and Cooper.
'Today was the day Detective Constable Ben Cooper was supposed to have died. For practical purposes, he was already dead.'
Fourteen years ago Mansell Quinn was jailed for murdering his mistress. Now he has escaped and is on the run, hiding amongst the Peak District's many summer tourists. When Quinn's ex-wife is found dead, DC Cooper and his tough boss DS Fry suspect it is only a matter of time before another victim is found. And Cooper – as the son of Quinn's arresting officer – is high on the list.
As they desperately search the case files for clues and the death toll rises, darker possibilities emerge. Are the killings the work of a deranged killer who cannot be found – or a desperate man, wrongly convicted?
Book 6
Soon there will be a killing. Close your eyes and breathe in the aroma. I can smell it right now, can’t you? So powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death.
`It’s perfectly simple. All you have to do is find the dead place’
The anonymous caller who taunts the Police with talk of an imminent killing could be a hoaxer, his descriptions of death and decomposition a sick fantasy. But Detective Diane Fry is certain she’s dealing with a murderer. The voice – so eerily, shiveringly calm – invites the police to meet the `flesh eater’. Fry fears it may already be too late to save the next victim.
DC Ben Cooper, meanwhile, is looking into Derbyshire’s first case of body snatching. The investigation takes him into the dark, secret world of those whose lives revolve around the dead and their disposal – from funeral directors to crematorium staff and a professor whose speciality is the study of death.
Where is the dead place? And what terrible deeds are done there?
Book 7
A dark psychological thriller featuring Diane Fry and Ben Cooper, in which a small community is ripped apart by arson and murder. `Ingenious plotting and richly atmospheric’ – Reginald Hill.
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…
Book 8
Detectives Fry and Cooper return in another supremely atmospheric Peak District thriller, perfect for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill
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?
Book 9
An atmospheric new Fry and Cooper thriller for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill.
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.
Book 10
An atmospheric new Fry and Cooper thriller for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill.
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.