Blind to the Bones [Paperback]

Praise for Blind to the Bones:

‘He has got better with each book. This is another very fine book, masterfully plotted and filled with real flesh-and-blood personalities’ Daily Telegraph

‘Another of Booth’s fine Derbyshire mysteries’ Scotsman

Praise for Stephen Booth:

‘Stephen Booth creates a fine sense of place and atmosphere … the unguessable solution to the crime comes as a real surprise’ Sunday Telegraph

‘The complex relationship between [Cooper and Fry] is excellently drawn, and is combined with an intriguing plot and a real sense of place: Stephen Booth is an author to keep an eye on’ Evening Standard

‘Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’ Val McDermid

‘A dark star may be born!’ Reginald Hill

'A leading light of British crime writing' Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian

A death in the family-from-hell bring Detectives Fry and Cooper to a remote and unfriendly rural community in their fourth psychological thriller.

'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 local family-from-hell, the Oxleys. Now it is the focus of a murder investigation – a man's body has been found on the bleak moors nearby, and the man is an Oxley. To crack the case, DC Ben Cooper must break open the delinquent clan.

His boss, DS Diane Fry, is also in Withens. Grim new evidence has turned up in the case of a missing student but her parents refuse to believe she could be dead.

The darkness in Withens's heart is growing. And things are only going to get nastier…

DC Ben Cooper is trying to crack the case and to do that he must crack this clannish family. On top of that, his difficult boss, Detective Diane Fry, is also in Withens on business – one Emma Renshaw, a student who vanished two years ago. Some ominous new evidence relating to Emma has turned up, but her parents are convinced she is still alive and act accordingly – and very strangely. So, with one murder and one as yet unsolved disappearance, Withens’ reputation for grimness is growing. And it looks like things are only going to get darker…

It's almost May Day, and on the desolate moors of Dark Peak 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.

As far as the parents of missing student Emma Renshaw are concerned, their daughter is 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?

DC Ben Cooper's attempts to solve the killings come against an equally impenetrable barrier in the shape of the Oxley family. Descendents 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 secrets from the likes of Cooper.

Winning the trust of the Withens folk and establishing a link between the deaths is not the only challenge facing Fry and Cooper. What evidence they have has been preserved in such a way it can never be presented to a judge and jury.

Praise for Stephen Booth:

'Dancing with the Virgins'
'Another first rate mystery…Booth is particularly good at creating credible characters.'
Susanna Yager, 'Sunday Telegraph'

'The complex relationship between [Cooper and Fry] is excellently drawn, and is combined with an intriguing plot and a real sense of place: Stephen Booth is an author to keep an eye on'
TJ Binyon, 'Evening Standard'

'Stephen makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter'
Val McDermid

'A dark star may be born'
Reginald Hill

'The plotting is strong and confident…on this form, Booth could soon be up there with the likes of Reginald Hill. If you read only one new crime writer this year, he's your man'
Janice Young, 'Yorkshire Post'

Stephen Booth was born in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley and has remained rooted to the Pennines during his career as a newspaper journalist. He lives with his wife Lesley in a former Georgian dower house in Nottinghamshire and his interests include folklore, the Internet and walking in the hills of the Peak District. This is the fourth novel in his series set in the Peak District.