On a rain-swept hillside, hounds from the local foxhunt discover the body of a well-dressed man. At that exact moment, an anonymous caller reports the same body . . . lying half a mile away.

It's only the first in a series of baffling clues as Ben Cooper and Diane Fry--partners and rivals on the detective force --plunge into a case involving horses, spectacular wealth, and a mysterious "plague village" where a centuries-old outbreak of Black Death has been transformed into a modern tourist attraction.

As the spring rain falls and the body count rises, Cooper and Fry's investigation twists back to the recent past. A killer lurks in the shadows there--a killer now hiding in plain sight . . .

Atmospheric and ingenious, packed with suspense and secrets, The Kill Call is an unforgettable thriller from an unforgettable writer.

Set in and around the dark, misty canals of Lichfield, Stephen Booth's incredible new novel is awash with mystery. When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an odd old man demanding help in healing a decades-old family rift, he sends the stranger away. But then the old man is murdered, and the police arrive on the Chris's doorstep asking questions to which he has no answers. As Chris begins to look into the circumstances of the murder, he uncovers a deadly secret in the silt and mud of the local canals that he'll realise was better kept buried. PRAISE FOR STEPHEN BOOTH 'Makes high summer as terrifying as midwinter' Val McDermid 'A modern master' Guardian 'Crime writing of the finest quality' Daily Mail 'Ingenious plotting and richly atmospheric' Reginald Hill 'A first-rate mystery' Sunday Telegraph

Dealing mainly with the works of William Shakespeare, the essays in Close Readings without Readings reflect Stephen Booth's lifelong interest in uncovering the ways great literature works upon readers. As the book's title suggests, the author does not aim to create new or novel interpretations or to uncover the political agendas of literary works, but to notice language patterns-repetitions, analogies, correspondences, echoes, overtones-and other ways in which the choice and the arrangement of words affect readers. For Booth, close reading is a practice of attentiveness. He notices how, why, and in what ways Shakespeare's works affect his readers. Whether readers agree with the premises of a literary work or not, they subject themselves, knowingly or not, to its effects. For Booth, what we value in literature is the experience. He has devoted his own work to recognizing the nature, process, and functions of reading literature, and to teaching others to do the same. Recent years have seen Booth's efforts recognized by volumes dedicated both to close reading and to his achievements as editor, scholar, critic, and teacher.

Soon there will be a killing. Close your eyes and breathe in the aroma. I can smell it right now, can’t you? So powerful, so sweet. So irresistible. It’s the scent of death.‘It’s perfectly simple. All you have to do is find the dead place’The anonymous caller who taunts the Police with talk of an imminent killing could be a hoaxer, his descriptions of death and decomposition a sick fantasy. But Detective Diane Fry is certain she’s dealing with a murderer. The voice – so eerily, shiveringly calm – invites the police to meet the ‘flesh eater’. Fry fears it may already be too late to save the next victim.DC Ben Cooper, meanwhile, is looking into Derbyshire’s first case of body snatching. The investigation takes him into the dark, secret world of those whose lives revolve around the dead and their disposal – from funeral directors to crematorium staff and a professor whose speciality is the study of death.

This volume, examining the ways in which Shakespeare's plays are designed for hearers as well as spectators, has been prompted by recent explorations of the auditory dimension of early modern drama by such scholars as Andrew Gurr, Bruce Smith, and James Hirsh. To look at the dynamics of hearing in Shakespeare's plays involves a paradigm shift that changes how we understand virtually everything about them, from the architecture of the buildings, to playing spaces, to blocking, and to larger interpretative issues, including our understanding of character based on players' responses to what they hear, mishear, or refuse to hear. Who Hears in Shakespeare? Auditory Worlds on Stage and Screen is comprised of three sections on Shakespeare's texts and performance history: "The Poetics of Hearing and the Early Modern Stage"; "Metahearing: Hearing, Knowing, and Audiences, Onstage and Off"; and "Transhearing: Hearing, Whispering, Overhearing, and Eavesdropping in Film and Other Media." Chapters by noted scholars explore the complex reactions and interactions of onstage and offstage audiences and show how Shakespearean stagecraft, actualized on stage and adapted on screen, revolves around various situations and conventions of hearing-soliloquies,, asides, avesdropping, overhearing, and stage whispers. In short, Who Hears in Shakespeare? enunciates Shakespeare's nuanced, powerful stagecraft of hearing. The volume ends with Stephen Booth's afterword, his inspiring meditation on hearing that considers Shakespearean "audiences" and their responses to what they hear-or don't hear-in Shakespeare's plays.

Set in and around the dark, misty canals of Lichfield, Stephen Booth's incredible new novel is awash with mystery. When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an odd old man demanding help in healing a decades-old family rift, he sends the stranger away. But then the old man is murdered, and the police arrive on the Chris's doorstep asking questions to which he has no answers. As Chris begins to look into the circumstances of the murder, he uncovers a deadly secret in the silt and mud of the local canals that he'll realise was better kept buried. PRAISE FOR STEPHEN BOOTH 'Makes high summer as terrifying as midwinter' Val McDermid 'A modern master' Guardian 'Crime writing of the finest quality' Daily Mail 'Ingenious plotting and richly atmospheric' Reginald Hill 'A first-rate mystery' Sunday Telegraph

Master crime writer Stephen Booth ventures into the Peak District's dark subterranean world for a brand new, stunning and gasp-inducing Cooper & Fry thriller. 'A modern master' Guardian How do you prove a murder without a body? Ten years ago, Reece Bower was accused of killing his wife, a crime he always denied. Extensive police searches near his home in Bakewell found no trace of Annette Bower's remains, and the case against him collapsed. But now memories of the original investigation have been resurrected for Detective Inspector Ben Cooper - because Reece Bower himself has disappeared, and his new wife wants answers. Cooper can't call on the Major Crime Unit and DS Diane Fry for help unless he can prove a murder took place - impossible without a body. As his search moves into the caves and abandoned mines in the isolated depths of Lathkilldale, the question is: who would want revenge for the death of Annette Bower?

The old Corpse Bridge is the route taken for centuries by mourners from villages on the western fringes of Derbyshire to a burial ground across the River Dove, now absorbed into the landscaped parkland of a stately home. When Earl Manby, the landowner, announces plans to deconsecrate the burial ground to turn it into a car park for his holiday cottages, bodies begin to appear once again on the road to the Corpse Bridge. Is there a connection with the Earl's plans? Or worse, is there a terrifying serial killer at work? Back in his job after the traumatic events of previous months, Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper knows that he must unravel the mystery of the Corpse Bridge if he's going to be able to move on with his life. As the pressure builds, Ben doesn't know who he can trust and, when the case reaches breaking point, he has to make a call that could put everything - and everyone - at risk...

A dark psychological thriller featuring Diane Fry and Ben Cooper, in which a small community is ripped apart by arson and murder. 'Ingenious plotting and richly atmospheric' - Reginald Hill. An assassination in the night - an open window and three bullets from the darkness - the victim a harmless middle-aged woman. But can she really be quite as innocent as she seems? The death of Rose Shepherd swarms with questions - unlike the deaths of a woman and her two children in a house fire. A tragedy, yes, but an everyday one. Then DS Fry discovers a link between the two cases, a link that crosses the borders between nations, between right and wrong, between madness and sanity. She and Ben Cooper discover why some people are scared to live - and others are fated to die...

An escaped convict threatens more than the summer tourist trade in the gripping fifth thriller featuring Detectives Fry and Cooper. 'Today was the day Detective Constable Ben Cooper was supposed to have died. For practical purposes, he was already dead.' Fourteen years ago Mansell Quinn was jailed for murdering his mistress. Now he has escaped and is on the run, hiding amongst the Peak District's many summer tourists. When Quinn's ex-wife is found dead, DC Cooper and his tough boss DS Fry suspect it is only a matter of time before another victim is found. And Cooper - as the son of Quinn's arresting officer - is high on the list. As they desperately search the case files for clues and the death toll rises, darker possibilities emerge. Are the killings the work of a deranged killer who cannot be found - or a desperate man, wrongly convicted?

Brutal acts of firestarting have ravaged the Peak District, and now a new wave of moorland infernos sweeps across the national park. For DS Ben Cooper, the blazes are best left to the firefighters, even with the arsonists still at large. But when an intruder breaks into an abandoned pub, Cooper is on the case - and he swiftly unearths a pair of grim surprises. The first is evidence of a years-old double homicide. And the second is a corpse, newly dead...What links the three deaths? Where are the missing bodies? Who is responsible - and how do the raging fires fit in? For Cooper and his rival DI Diane Fry, it's the most twisted investigation of their lives...and with an ingenious killer pulling the strings, it could also be their last. Drenched in atmosphere and danger, Stephen Booth's relentless new thriller builds to a shock finale that will catch even the most seasoned suspense readers off guard.

Ben Cooper and his team from Derbyshire Constabulary's E Division return in this gripping new page-turner from the master of the genre. For the Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its handful of 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...'Booth skilfully portrays a stunning landscape with a dark heart that conceals secrets, vendettas and revenge.' Daily Mail on The Corpse Bridge

An atmospheric new Fry and Cooper thriller for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined by the tragic drowning of an eight-year-old girl in picturesque Dovedale. For Detective Constable Ben Cooper, a helpless witness to the tragedy, the incident is not only traumatic, but leads him to become involved in the tangled lives of the Neilds, the dead girl's family. As he gets to know them, Cooper begins to suspect that one of them is harbouring a secret - a secret that the whole family might be willing to cover up. Meanwhile, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry has a journey of her own to make - a journey back to her roots. As she finds herself drawn into an investigation of her own among the inner-city streets of Birmingham, Fry realises there is only one person she can rely on to provide the help she needs. But that man is Ben Cooper, and he's back in Derbyshire, where his suspicions are leading him towards a shocking discovery on the banks of another Peak District river.

The second in the series set in the Derbyshire Peak District, Dancing with the Virgins is a tense psychological follow-up to Stephen Booth's acclaimed debut Black Dog. 'The body of the woman sprawled obscenely among the stones... She looked like a dead woman, dancing.' The ring of cairns known as the Nine Virgins has stood on the windswept moors of Derbyshire for centuries. Now, as winter closes in, a tenth figure is added - a body - and a modern tragedy is added to the dark legend that surrounds the stones. There's no shortage of suspects, each with their own guilty secret, but what DS Fry and DC Cooper lack is any kind of motive. As they search separately for answers, it seems the reasons for the strange behaviour of the moor's inhabitants may lie somewhere in the past, in a terrible crime yet to be discovered...

Steeped in the atmosphere of the stunning Peak District, Secrets of Death is master crime writer Stephen Booth's most daring and clever Cooper & Fry thriller yet. A beautiful place to die ...Residents of the Peak District are used to tourists descending on its soaring hills and brooding valleys. However, this summer brings a different kind of visitor to the idyllic landscape, leaving behind bodies and secrets. A series of suicides throughout the Peaks throws Detective Inspector Ben Cooper and his team in Derbyshire's E Division into a race against time to find a connection to these seemingly random acts - with no way of predicting where the next body will turn up. Meanwhile, in Nottingham Detective Sergeant Diane Fry finds a key witness has vanished...But what are the mysterious Secrets of Death? And is there one victim whose fate wasn't suicide at all?

Set in and around the dark, misty canals of Lichfield, Stephen Booth's incredible new novel is awash with mystery. When council officer Chris Buckley is approached by an odd old man demanding help in healing a decades-old family rift, he sends the stranger away. But then the old man is murdered, and the police arrive on the Chris's doorstep asking questions to which he has no answers. As Chris begins to look into the circumstances of the murder, he uncovers a deadly secret in the silt and mud of the local canals that he'll realise was better kept buried. PRAISE FOR STEPHEN BOOTH 'Makes high summer as terrifying as midwinter' Val McDermid 'A modern master' Guardian 'Crime writing of the finest quality' Daily Mail 'Ingenious plotting and richly atmospheric' Reginald Hill 'A first-rate mystery' Sunday Telegraph

Detectives Fry and Cooper return in another supremely atmospheric Peak District thriller, perfect for fans of Peter Robinson and Reginald Hill Building work at an isolated farm has unearthed more than just the usual remains... two human are discovered, seemingly buried years apart. With little forensic evidence to go on, Detectives Diane Fry and Ben Cooper have to look back into the farm's history, where they uncover decades of abuse of migrant workers. Is the truth to be found somewhere in this piteous history? Or does the answer lie elsewhere, hidden in the ground, and still waiting to be discovered?