Customer Reviews: Read 2 more reviews...
 how a thriller should be June 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
this is the first time I have read anything by Stephen Booth and I will be looking out for more. This crime thriller spun a web of intrigue which was hard to leave to do the mundane things like eat, drink and go to work, let alone sleep, all with the most impeccable writing and characterisation. A lesson to all crime writers, this is the way to do it.
Brilliant April 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the best in the series so far, I think. So far I have ben reading them in the right order, and while I enjoyed the first two, this one surpasses them by a mile. I did find it a little bit slow to begin with but once I got into it, I loved the mystery from the past as well as the present, it's all quite fascinating. Even though it's 600+ pages I read it in a couple of days because these books are so easy to read you just don't want to put them down. There's something very comfortable about them, they're so full of normal English settings, regular people living in typical English homes, with the odd nasty murderer thrown in for good measure.
Not everybody swears April 11, 2008
How wonderful to be able to read a griity crime novel without having to suffer bad grammer and bad language. There is nothing to detract you from the story so you are hooked from page 1.
Well done Mr Booth; a lesson to all novelists.
Terrific Psychological Thriller August 26, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A newspaper and magazine journalist for over 25 years, Stephen Booth was born in the English Pennine town of Burnley. He was brought up on the coast at Blackpool, where he began his career in journalism by editing his school magazine and wrote his first 'novel' at the age of 13.
There is no easy way to commit suicide, but Marie Tennent seems to have gone out of her way to make hers as difficult and uncomfortable as possible. She just seemed to have given up the will to live and curled up in the freezing snow and stayed there until her body was covered in a layer of frost, almost making her blend in with the countryside.
Marie's body is not the only one the police have to contend with as a baby is discovered in the wreckage of an old bomber aircraft and the body of a man is dumped by the roadside. All this coming at a time when snow and ice have left half of the Division out of action and Diane fry is forced to partner DC Gavin Murfin. Fry and Ben Cooper were never going to be the dream team but Ben is her soul mate compared to Murfin.
This is just the start of another murder from the pen/word processor of the author. This psychological thriller is well written, entertaining and thrilling (well in my experience not all thrillers are). I have read several of the author's books and this is as good as any.
Another Powerful Performance October 31, 2003
23 out of 27 found this review helpful
The third in the Cooper / Fry series once again uses the rugged, picturesque landscape of the Derbyshire Peak District as a stark backdrop to another enjoyable police procedural.It’s January and the Edendale police are severely short-staffed thanks to terrible weather and a number of “slip and fall” injuries. Meanwhile the snow is falling and is creating havoc is a town that seems to be going through a bit of a crime wave. Beatings, missing children and a couple of dead bodies are discovered in the snow, one going unidentified and the other prompting more questions than are answered. On top of this comes an unusually high level of interest in a 57-year-old wartime plane crash that had taken place just outside of town. How had the plane crashed? Whatever became of the pilot? Why is there so much interest in it now after all this time? Detective Constable Ben Cooper is still the hardworking, under appreciated officer who is more than willing to take on any task assigned to him. His immediate superior Detective Sergeant Diane Fry is still the antagonistic outsider who resents Cooper’s popularity and hardworking ethics. Surely something’s got to give between these two sometime. This excellent series of books is continued by yet another strong entry. Powerful writing gives the feeling of being placed within sight of the beautiful peaks around Edendale.
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