Book details

Book description

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. Born in Lancashire, Stephen Booth has been a newspaper and magazine journalist for 25 years. He has worked as a rugby reporter, a night shift sub-editor on the 'Scottish Daily Express' and Production Editor of the 'Farming Guardian' magazine, in addition to spells on local newspapers in the North of England. Stephen lives in a Georgian dower house in Nottinghamshire with his wife, three cats and goats. His interests include folklore, the Internet and walking in the Peak District.