Fall Down Dead
"Stephen Booth is an author of immense talent."
Synopsis:
The mountain of Kinder Scout offers the most incredibly views of the Peak District, but when thick fog descends on a walking party led by enigmatic Darius Roth, this spectacular landscape is turned into a death trap that claims a life.
For DI Ben Cooper, however, something about the way Faith Matthew fell to her death suggests it was no accident, and he quickly discovers more than one of the hikers may have had reason to murder their companion.
The make things worse, his old colleague DS Diane Fry finds herself at the centre of an internal investigation storm that threatens to drag Cooper down with her.
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Review:
'Fall Down Dead' is the eighteenth Cooper and Fry novel and it is just as fresh as book one, 'Black Dog'. Stephen Booth is an author of immense talent. He has a bewitching way of drawing you into the world of Cooper and Fry as he wonderfully describes the beautiful Derbyshire landscape. When characters are standing atop a mountain surrounded by fog, stranded, isolated and alone, you shiver as if you were there yourself. That is the power of Booth's writing. One of my favourite authors is the late great Reginald Hill (creator of the Dalziel and Pascoe series). He was a master of the crime fiction genre. In my opinion, Stephen Booth has taken up the baton and continued his legacy of writing dark, rich thrillers set in Britain's most stunning and dangerous parts of the country. Cooper and Fry are opposites yet Fry always needs to call on Cooper when she needs help and, once again, he answers her call. Diane Fry is not well liked but the strong facade she puts on is only revealed as a fake to the reader. She's incredibly vulnerable, and that's what makes her so likeable. I'd like to see Cooper and Fry on a more equal footing and working together in future novels. One aspect of Booth's writing that I don't get with other authors is the history he includes in his books. I often check Wikipedia to learn more about what Booth conveys in his work, and it makes the story linger in the mind long after the final page. 'Fall Down Dead' is a first rate mystery thriller and Stephen Booth's effortless writing is a force to be reckoned with.