So many of Britain's regions have proven the background to outstanding crime series and the Peak District is no exception, with Stephen Booth as its prominent voice, with every successive title wedding his indomitable cops Detective Inspector Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry to the rugged and beautiful landscape and catching the atmospheric feel of the place with unerring precision. This 15th novel in a series that should in all justice soon make it to our TV screens is as assured as ever, beginning with an abandoned lorry that delivered animal feed, and no trace of the driver, apart from copious bloodstains in the cab. A web of secrets. lies and loyalties begs to be unravelled as internal police reorganisations and conflicts hold the investigation back. Impeccable police procedurals with a touch of class.
For the tiny Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its residents are accustomed to being cut off from the world by snow or floods. But when a lorry delivering animal feed is found jammed in the narrow lane, with no sign of the driver except for a blood-stained cab, it's the beginning of something much more sinister. Detective Inspector Ben Cooper must attempt to unravel the history of secrets, lies and loyalties that will lead to the truth behind the missing lorry driver. But the residents of Shawhead are not used to having strangers in their midst and, while getting to grips with staff changes in E Division, Ben's way forward is far from clear. Will he turn to Detective Sergeant Diane Fry, now working in Special Operations at Nottingham's Major Crimes Unit, for help when the case takes a dramatic turn? A truly outstanding mystery that's packed with foreboding Peak District atmosphere, The Murder Road is a suspense-filled read that reaches a stunningly clever conclusion.
'Booth skilfully portrays a stunning landscape with a dark heart that conceals secrets, vendettas and revenge.' Daily Mail on The Corpse Bridge
Author
About Stephen Booth
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 three goats.
His debut crime novel ‘Black Dog’ was the first in a series set in the Peak District and featuring young Derbyshire police detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. ‘Black Dog’ was named as one of the six best crime novels of 2000 by the ‘London Evening Standard’, and Reginald Hill said: “Stephen Booth’s ‘Black Dog’ sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let you go.”
