Who killed Laura Vernon?The helicopters are halted. The dogs are called off. The search for beautiful, teenaged Laura Vernon is over. Her body is found, mutilated, in the forest.When he takes on the case, Ben Cooper is paired with a new partner: Diane Fry, a woman as tenacious as she is alluring. The two detectives are like fire and gasoline. But they must learn to work together to apprehend a killer who is hiding in plain sight.This relentless, atmospheric thriller...

Home is where the bodies lie in this crime thriller packed with nerve-jangling suspense and moody atmosphere from the award-winning author of Claws.The newspapers call them the Savages: a band of home invaders as merciless as they are stealthy. Usually they don't leave a clue—but this time, they've left a body. The first victim is found sprawled on her kitchen floor, blood soaking the terracotta tiles. Before long, another corpse is discovered, dead of frig...

An arsonist wreaks havoc in the English countryside as corpses pile up in this murder mystery featuring rival detectives.As wildfires ravage the Peak District's idyllic national park, hundreds of firefighters and park rangers fight to keep the blaze from reaching a historic inn, a landmark that has been boarded up for years. For weeks now, acts of arson have destroyed miles of land, and once the flames die down, a grim surprise awaits detectives Ben Cooper and Diane...

A spine-chilling crime thriller from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Dead Place. "Few will be able to predict Booth's twisted conclusion." — Publishers WeeklyHow 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. With no friends, no family, and virtually no contact with the outside world, the dead woman may simply have bee...

"A thoroughly enjoyable book from one of Britain's best crime writers," the award-winning author of One Last Breath ( The Sunday Telegraph)."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 call...

In this East Midlands village, there's only one way out . . . "Top notch crime writing with an irresistible sense of place." ― Lancashire Evening PostThe picturesque English village of Shawhead has one road in and one road out. And on that road this morning is an abandoned vehicle . . . with an ominous bloodstain inside.It's a mystery. It could be a murder. Where—and who—is the driver? Whose blood has been discovered? Why are the people of Shawhead s...

A "suspenseful and supremely engaging" police procedural featuring a detective team investigating ritualistic killings of women in the English countryside ( Los Angeles Times).As winter closes in on the moors, so does death. The body of a young woman is found within a ring of ancient cairns, her arms and legs arranged to look as though she's dancing.Now another young woman has been found, savagely wounded and severely traumatized, but alive. Ben Coop...

A chilling police procedural from the award-winning author of Scared to Live. "If you read only one new crime writer this year, he's your man." — Yorkshire PostYou never know what you might uncover . . .While digging the foundation for the conversion of an old farmyard into upscale stables, builders unearth a human hand preserved in clay. Suddenly suspicious, the police explore further and find not one body, but two.To crack a case th...

A twisted thrill ride from the award-winning author of Blind to the Bones, "a leading light of British crime writing" ( The Guardian).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. Detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry are looking for such a man, one who is on a murderous rampage.

In this "outstanding" thriller with "a complex and absorbing plot," rival detectives investigate murder by digging into the past of their rural community ( Publishers Weekly, starred review).It's a new year for Peak District detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, and that means new murders to solve in the icy depths of a bitter winter in Edendale, Derbyshire.It isn't the easiest way to commit suicide, but the dead woman seems to have simply curled up i...

A "complex, challenging, but equally rewarding" police procedural featuring rival detectives investigating linked murder and missing person cases ( Kirkus Reviews)"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 a family of local delinquents, the Oxleys. Now the town is the focus of a murder investigation. A man'...

Dealing mainly with the works of William Shakespeare, the essays in Close Readings without Readings reflect Stephen Booth’s lifelong interest in uncovering the ways great literature works upon readers. As the book’s title suggests, the author does not aim to create new or novel interpretations or to uncover the political agendas of literary works, but to notice language patterns—repetitions, analogies, correspondences, echoes, overtones—and other ways in which the choice and the arrangemen...