Stephen Booth Official Website

Stephen Booth's award-winning crime thrillers, set in England's beautiful and atmospheric Peak District, feature young police detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry.

Black Dog and Dancing with the Virgins both won the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel, and Stephen was the winner of the 2003 Dagger in the Library award, presented by the Crime Writers' Association for the author whose books have given readers the most pleasure.

The series has collected nominations for eight other awards, including the UK's top crime writing honour, the Gold Dagger. Detective Constable Ben Cooper was a finalist for the 2003 Sherlock Award for best detective created by a British author.

STEPHEN BOOTH NEWSLETTER
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Amid the desolate moors of the Dark Peak, in a valley of lost communities, the villagers of Withens are dying. One has been battered to death and left for the crows to find; another chose the wrong time to call on a neighbour. And one has been dead for two years - though not everyone will believe it.

DC Ben Cooper's attempts to solve the killings come up against an impenetrable barrier in the shape of the Oxley family. Descendants of tunnel-builders, they stick to their own area like the hefted sheep on the hillsides, passing on secret knowledge through generations, and guarding their traditions jealously from outsiders.

And as far as the parents of missing student Emma Renshaw are concerned, their daughter is still alive -- which doesn't help DS Diane Fry in her efforts to re-open the case. Will a grim discovery finally allow the Renshaws to return to their normal lives, or break their grip on reality? And could the secret knowledge held by the Oxleys ever be presented to a judge and jury?

"Once again, Booth has produced a masterpiece of fiction. If I could rate a book 6 out of 5, Blind to the Bones would be the book to achieve this distinction. If you haven't discovered Stephen Booth yet, you should rectify that immediately." - Phoenix Book Reviews

IT'S COMPETITION TIME! The second issue of the Stephen Booth Newsletter went out to email subscribers at the beginning of April. It included a competition to win one of six signed hardback first editions of the forthcoming Cooper & Fry novel, ONE LAST BREATH. If you'd like to be in with a chance of winning a copy, you can sign up for the newsletter now and get details of the competition. And watch out for issue number 3 in June.

In Denmark, Forlaget Klim have just published the first book in the Cooper & Fry series, SORT LUNE (BLACK DOG). Read more or buy a copy online now.

The German translation of BLOOD ON THE TONGUE - "KALTES GRAB" - has recently been published in hardback by Goldmann.

Stephen Booth will be talking to readers during this year's Derbyshire Literature Festival. On Wednesday 2nd June, he'll be appearing at the Parish Rooms, New Road, Wingerworth, near Chesterfield. More details of this and other appearances on the Events page.

In the same month, Stephen will be visiting Canada for the first time when he attends Book Expo Canada in Toronto to promote the new Cooper & Fry novel, ONE LAST BREATH. Details on the Events page.**Please note that there are no further events planned in the USA during 2004.**

Stephen won the 2003 Dagger in the Library Award, presented by the Crime Writers' Association for "the author whose books have given readers the most pleasure".

He is pictured being congratulated by CWA Chair Hilary Bonner at the Dagger presentations in London.

Stephen Booth has contributed his recipe for Accidental Bakewell Pudding to a new mystery writers' cook book called 'A Second Helping of Murder', published by Poisoned Pen Press.

Now available by popular demand is the main text of Stephen's talk 'Motive? What Motive?', delivered at the St Hilda's Mystery Conference in Oxford during September 2003.

For those who prefer the audio versions, BLACK DOG, BLOOD ON THE TONGUE and BLIND TO THE BONES are all available in unabridged audio from Clipper Audio, read by Christopher Kay. Dancing with the Virgins can be obtained from Soundings.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE reached number 6 on the fiction bestseller list in Sweden under its Swedish title Iskallt spår. The book is published in Sweden by Minotaur. Buy a copy online here. Or click here for details in Swedish.

Diane Kudisch, owner of the San Francisco Mystery Bookstore in California, has emailed to say she has a new dog for the store - and she's named him 'Cooper' in honour of Detective Constable Ben Cooper. Ben is really chuffed about this - so thanks, Diane! Why not click here to visit Cooper (the dog, that is).

BLACK DOG was a winner in the Mystery category for the
first ever Bloody Dagger Awards, presented by the
reviewers of All About Murder.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE was a finalist in the Mystery, Suspense and Thriller category of the 2003 Dorothy Parker Awards for Excellence, presented by the Reviewers International Organisation. Other finalists included Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich.

ALERT FOR COLLECTORS! There are still some copies available of a special signed limited edition of BLOOD ON THE TONGUE, published by Scorpion Press with an appreciation written by Reginald Hill.

E-book versions of BLACK DOG and Dancing with the Virgins are available in Microsoft E-book Reader and Adobe Acrobat formats.

The French translation of Blood on the Tongue
- L'Aigle sanglant - has been published by Le Masque.

Coming soon in France: the pocket paperback edition
of Peak Park (Dancing with the Virgins).

The Finnish translation of DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS - NEITSEIDEN TANSSI - has been published by Blue Moon. Click here for details in Finnish.

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For full details of available and forthcoming editions,
including translations, go to the Books page.
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In the icy depths of a Peak District winter, DS Diane Fry finds herself with three dead bodies on her hands. Most baffling of all is the unidentified man found dumped by the roadside, who almost uninjured until the snow plough hit him.

It's all too much for the depleted manpower of E Division to cope with, and Fry needs all the help she can get. But DC Ben Cooper, is following a cold trail of his own - and they don't come any colder than this one. On the snow-covered moors lies the burnt-out wreckage of a Second World War bomber, in which all but one crewman died.

What does the area's close-knit Polish community know about the long-ago crash? And could wartime secrets provide the key to an outbreak of present-day violence?

"Booth achieves the most satisfactory fusion yet of those elements which make him distinctive - atmospheric intensity, living landscape, strong central characterisation, all put at the service of a powerful, well plotted story."
- Reginald Hill, creator of the Dalziel and Pascoe series