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Black Dog (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry #1)
by
Stephen Booth (Goodreads Author)
As helicopters search Northern England's Peak District for fifteen year-old Laura Vernon, Detective Constable Ben Cooper quietly dreads the worst. And when her body is found in the woods, Cooper's investigation begins with a short list of markedly uncooperative suspects: retired miner Harry Dickinson, whose black Labrador discovered Laura's body, and Laura's wealthy parent...more
Paperback, 514 pages
Published
2007
(first published November 6th 2000)
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Community Reviews
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2,146)
Oct 09, 2012
Kell
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
read-in-2007,
reviewed-for-author-publisher
*REVIEWED FOR AUTHOR*
From start to finish, this is an exploration of secrets – everyone has them and some are darker than others! It's rather dark and you get the feeling that "outsiders" aren't necessarily welcome despite Edendale being a tourist town in the summer - an air of "This is a local town, for local people - there's nothing for you here!"
Plenty of twists & turns keep the reader engrossed as the police are thrown off the scent, whether by accident or design. There is constant intri...more
From start to finish, this is an exploration of secrets – everyone has them and some are darker than others! It's rather dark and you get the feeling that "outsiders" aren't necessarily welcome despite Edendale being a tourist town in the summer - an air of "This is a local town, for local people - there's nothing for you here!"
Plenty of twists & turns keep the reader engrossed as the police are thrown off the scent, whether by accident or design. There is constant intri...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I found this a thoroughly enjoyable and gripping read. Stephen Booth's Peak District is as taut and atmospheric as the case Cooper and Fry are investigating. It is high summer when a spoilt young girl goes missing and then later turns up dead. A difficult old man's discovery leads police to the body - but he turns out to be surprisingly uncooperative. Both Cooper and Fry have personal lives and pasts which cast long shadows - although they are very different people, with different ways of operat...more
Mar 25, 2013
Minty McBunny
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
2013,
march-2013
Goodreads recommended this book to me & the title with the cover art caught my attention because it made me think of Twin Peaks. At first the writing style was hard to get used to, I had to keep reminding myself this book was written by a man because the over-blown descriptions of simple things seemed very feminine. Eventually I was able to get past my annoyance with the language and was quite interested in the story. It reminded me somewhat of Val McDermid's Place of Execution, in that it w...more
I'd been looking out for new authors I might enjoy and this book came from the Goodreads recommendations. It is the debut novel, circa 1999, and I was delighted to see there are 11 books in all in this series. I really liked it, it did "just what it said on the tin", so to speak. Sometimes, the blurb on the back cover can be a little misleading, but not in this case. It had a great plot, characters and it was totally grounded and realistic. Set in the Peak District, D.C. Diane Fry arrives to tak...more
1 like · like · see review
This is the first book in the Ben Cooper and Diane Fry police procedural set in the Peak District in England. It introduces the reader to the contentious pairing of the two police persons assigned to the case.
A fifteen year old girl goes missing and is later found murdered.Ben Cooper and Diane Fry are paired up to work on the case. Ben is a local who grew up in the area. His father was a policeman before him. He goes at times by instinct when solving a crime. Diane who is newly transferred to th...more
A fifteen year old girl goes missing and is later found murdered.Ben Cooper and Diane Fry are paired up to work on the case. Ben is a local who grew up in the area. His father was a policeman before him. He goes at times by instinct when solving a crime. Diane who is newly transferred to th...more
This is the first book in a series featuring detectives Cooper & Fry. The comments in this review pertain to the first seven novels. The writing is above par and the setting a rural community in England. There's a melancholy feel to the entire enterprise that's strangely appealing. The main subject is murder so an upbeat series would be very odd but somehow it's not dreary or macabre. It's more a procedural than a character driven endeavor. I suppose you could draw a parallel between the ser...more
I love books like this. I love books where everything gets tied together at the end. Even things that didn't seem important while you are reading are revealed to be important in the end...they are like clues that were given to you that you completely overlooked while reading. I was very surprised at the end who the murderer turned out to be. I think it's hard these days to write a good murder mystery that keeps the reader guessing.
In addition, the characters were dynamic and lifelike. Everybody...more
In addition, the characters were dynamic and lifelike. Everybody...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
I wish there was half a star. This is probably 3 1/2, but I bumped it up to 4. At over 500 pages, it's a long read that starts out slowly and can sometimes bog the reader down in detail. it is set in a small Irish village, and annoyingly I found myself reading it in an Irish accent. I can honestly say that until the last 20 pages, I did not know who "did it".
apparently, this is the first book where Ben Cooper and Lisa Frey work together. both characters annoyed the heck out of me at times. Ben...more
apparently, this is the first book where Ben Cooper and Lisa Frey work together. both characters annoyed the heck out of me at times. Ben...more
Cooper looked again at the summit of Win Low and the Witches There was a n ancient pack horse road crossing the tore, beneath the shadow of the twisted rocks. But it would be a brave traveller who went that way at night. It was all too easy to imagine the black hounds of the legends growling up there on the dark ridge, waiting to pounce.
And once the black dogs of hell were on your back, you could nee shake them off.
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in the Peak District. I'v...more
And once the black dogs of hell were on your back, you could nee shake them off.
This is the first in a series of police procedurals set in the Peak District. I'v...more
This books was okay but I had a few problems with it. It was verbose to the extreme. While listening, I occasionally found myself unconsciously rolling my eyes and saying "Get on with it!" in my head though maybe it wouldn't have been as annoying in print. An okay mystery plot with a murderer who is a surprise mostly becasue his motive is weak in the extreme. Only one really likeable character and somewhat cheaply tries to make the reader sympathetic with one of the other characters by giving th...more
Dec 14, 2008
asteroidbuckle
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
mysteries,
crime-fiction
I started reading this series at Book Three, though I didn't realize it was a series at the time. I have since read all the way through Book Seven, but had not read Book One or Two until now.
It was interesting to see how the whole series started since I have always been a little at a loss as to why there is such animosity between Cooper and Fry. (Although, frankly, it isn't difficult to see what there is to dislike about Fry. She's a bitch.) It also showed a different side of Cooper, who has bee...more
It was interesting to see how the whole series started since I have always been a little at a loss as to why there is such animosity between Cooper and Fry. (Although, frankly, it isn't difficult to see what there is to dislike about Fry. She's a bitch.) It also showed a different side of Cooper, who has bee...more
Considering that Black Dog is Stephen Booth's first novel, and that it's a mystery series opener, it's really quite good.
As the book opens, Ben Cooper of the Edendale police (in the Peak District of England) is involved in the case of a missing teenaged girl, Laura Vernon. According to her parents, she was a wonderful child, interested in school and horses, and would never just up and run away. The police force is giving its all on this case, but the body is actually discovered by an elderly ma...more
As the book opens, Ben Cooper of the Edendale police (in the Peak District of England) is involved in the case of a missing teenaged girl, Laura Vernon. According to her parents, she was a wonderful child, interested in school and horses, and would never just up and run away. The police force is giving its all on this case, but the body is actually discovered by an elderly ma...more
Very, very good! I read a fair bit of crime fiction; this is so well written, plotted and paced compared to many other books. Lots of others seem to run out of steam and become tedious because the storyline becomes so predictable.
I enjoyed the interweaving of the characters' stories and the way that there's a lot more to discover about them both.
I didn't guess who dunnit as there were so many potential villains. The outcome was actually rather sad.
I can see exactly why this is being made into a...more
I enjoyed the interweaving of the characters' stories and the way that there's a lot more to discover about them both.
I didn't guess who dunnit as there were so many potential villains. The outcome was actually rather sad.
I can see exactly why this is being made into a...more
Eine britischer Thriller...automatisch habe ich ihn ein bisschen mit Simon Beckett verglichen und musste feststellen, dass das Buch nicht an ihn heranreicht. Dafür gab es zu viele unnötige Anspielungen, die sich in ihrer Art wiederholten, und zu wenige charakteristisch geformte Persönlichkeiten. Der Neuzugang der Polizeiwache, Diane Fry, blieb mir, obwohl ich das Gefühl hatte, dass der Autor eine Wandlung in ihrer Person thematisiert, bis zuletzt äußerst unsympathisch und war meines Erachtens se...more
Really enjoyed this first book of the series. A tough look at crime in rural Derbyshire. Cooper & Fry are an uneasy pairing - both very different, but this is what keeps the reader entertained. Both have suffered trauma and have dark things hidden in their past, which affect their attitude towards the crimes they are trying to solve. A satisfying read.
I would read Stephen Booth again, in part because the plot was pretty good. I found some of the parts inside the main characters' heads melodramatic, and both Ben and Diane (especially Diane) come across as unbelievably paranoid in dealing with ordinary people she does not know. Still, you want to get to know them both better.
Author was recommended by someone, and I had a hard time staying with the book at first. It seemed dark and going nowhere. However, I stayed with it and came to enjoy the characters. I'd not met an author who created paired characters who were antagonists from the beginning. I did like the second book in the series.
This is the first of a series that seems promising. "Black Dog" refers both to the depression of the main character and to an important clue in the solution of the mystery. The interest of the novel is the clash between the main character, DC Ben Cooper, a native of the Peak District where this is set, and DC Diane Fry, a new arrival in the area who seems very uncomfortable in the countryside. The relationship between these two is portrayed realistically and, even better, seems destined to remai...more
My first read of a Stephen Booth book and apparently the first in the series . I enjoyed the " police procedural " approach and while some of the motives remain unclear in the ending I enjoyed trying to solve the mystery along with Ben Cooper. Lots of potential with the characters of Ben Cooper and Diane Fry .
I really enjoyed this book and intend to read the rest of his books one after another. It is sort of like Jay's Potato Chips. I may not be able to stop reading them. If you like a nice complicated police procedural with complicate characters, try this book.
I'm glad I didn't grow up in this town, just way to inbred and unhappy a place. Finding out who murdered Laura Vernon, a member of an 'in comer family', is made way harder when Harry Dickinson makes it his full time job to obstruct the police investigation!
Audio book: Liked this mystery. It got deep in history and the like at parts. Booth wove a good tale. I didn't care for the female detective, Dianne Frye. I did like Cooper, but not much more. Great discriptions of characters, location and mood.
This is the first book in the Fry and Cooper series and I really enjoyed it. It came as a surprised to find that the perpetrator was not who it seemed to be. Stephen Booth the author does take a while to explain the characters and their background but at the same time the story keeps evolving. Good read.
Apr 19, 2010
Kathleen
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
folks who enjoy the brit mysteries
Recommended to Kathleen by:
fantastic fiction, Susan Hill site
Got this thru ILL since no library in the area possessed a copy. And now I know why..... Several times I wanted to just throw it across the room: frustrating, a VERY annoying female sidekick (who is about as uncouth as they come)- what kept me going was: I knew the solution was right in front of me & wanted to see it thru.
That, and I figure this book, the first of a series with Ben Cooper, was all about background & setting up the scene for the upcoming books.
Perhaps I'll read more of Mr...more
That, and I figure this book, the first of a series with Ben Cooper, was all about background & setting up the scene for the upcoming books.
Perhaps I'll read more of Mr...more
I read this as part of my UK Challenge and it crosses Derbyshire nicely off my list of UK places to visit. It is all about a murder which happens in the Peak District. A teenage girl is found murdered and everyone interviewed seems to have something to hide especially the old man Harry. Ben Cooper, a local, is sent to investigate - he is a typical old-school bobby but he has to work with an ambition-driven woman detective from the CID. As you can imagine their ways do not always match.
I never wo...more
I never wo...more
Won this book in Library promotion with other books .
Crime Novel set the English peaks district. I found it a little to parochial for my taste.
Also found it dull like he was writing for TV.
Crime Novel set the English peaks district. I found it a little to parochial for my taste.
Also found it dull like he was writing for TV.
I wish I could add a half/star. A very satisfactory British novel that left me wanting to read the rest of the series, but without any urgency. Next time I'm on a plane. . . .
This one is the first in the series of Ben Cooper and the athmosphere still makes me shiver. Many secrets awaits to be unravelled and in the end Booth ties it together.
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A former newspaper journalist, Stephen Booth is the creator of two young Derbyshire police detectives, DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry, who have so far appeared in 12 crime novels, all set in and around England's Peak District.
The Cooper & Fry series has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and Detective Constable Cooper has been a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the Best Detective cr...more
More about Stephen Booth...
The Cooper & Fry series has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and Detective Constable Cooper has been a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the Best Detective cr...more
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Feb 17, 2012 02:10pm