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I was given a book by Stephen Fry and thought it looked interesting, but when I looked it up on the author's website, I discovered that it was actually the eighth in a series featuring Lake District detectives Ben Cooper and Dian Fry; I didn't want to read the eighth book before I had even read the first, so I decided to do a hunt on Ebay and soon found many more books from this series. "Black Dog" is excellently written and for me was an extremely good and exciting introduction to the Cooper and Fry series; I found it very hard to put down at times, so it was hard to put down in order to concentrate on other things! The rest of the series will no doubt be equally good, so I'm lookling forward to reading them all, however long it might take me ....
Set in the rural Peak District in the realistic but fabricated Town of Edendale (supposedly near Matlock) this is a tough definitively English Police procedural. In Edendale DC Ben Cooper is well liked by all, shop-keepers, landlords, the general populace, mainly because he is the son of a heroic policeman who died a few years back but also because he likes to naively see the best in all people, until they show him their wrong side. Because of his tenure at Edendale he hopes to be made up to DS when the expected changes at the Station occur. Over in the West Midlands an incident occurs and DC Diane Fry moves across to Edendale and her ambition and directness are better suited to the mindset of the hierarchy than Cooper's idealism and somewhat too trusting style. You can see what is going to happen from the off, as Edendale's golden boy is under the glare of Fry's penetrating stare from day one. With the pair of them investigating in their own way Fry gets the acclaim when the full story is finally revealed. The Black Dog of the title is not an animal, well not like the Baskerville Hound, although first glance at the title may cause you to think it is and if you live in the Derby, Matlock area you may well have heard of it. Stephen Booth paints such a realistic picture of Edendale I bet I am not the first to check it out on the internet to see if it really exists. It has it's own Police Station, Fire Station, Butcher's, Baker's and quite possibly a Candlestick Maker as well. It is a large community with outlying borders of bleak barren hills and mountains, moss covered miles of nothing and a sparsity of farms and very little other industry except tourism. There is a large series of around 16-18 books about Edendale and Fry & Cooper. Booth's storytelling often makes you feel sorry for Ben Cooper, especially when his thoughts and ideas eventually lead to the solution, but of course he always manages to screw up in major fashion, costing money and man power the force cannot afford, in virtually every book and then Diane Fry sweeps in with her no-nonsense policing to win the day and the acclaim. Stephen Booth writes very long and very defined and detailed stories and to be honest although I enjoy that they are good strong tales, I usually skip-read them when he starts to describe absolutely everything in a room, for example, right down to the teabags which were probably bought in Tesco or the new Morrisons when they were on special offer. He does write real people though, even if most of them are clam-mouthed Northerners who rarely speak a sentence of more than four words, and he describes how they live, where they live and what they do from when they arise in the early hours until they blow out the lamps and slip beneath the heavy duvet covers at night. There are no superficial people in Edendale, but there are a lot of eccentrics. As Ben and Diane drive or walk around the streets and surrounding villages and farms, peat bogs and open fields and woods you are drawn into their world and it is so very real. The stories are often based on local superstitions, like the Black Dog, and are not short and sharp like James Patterson's crime books but more like Morse or Frost.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Having read other books in this series before I read this one, I feel I should have read it first as it offers so much background into Cooper & Fry’s characters. I really enjoyed it and am re-reading the others now.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
Read them all in sequence, as the story of Ben & Diane follow through eachbook.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
This is a great first book of the series of crimes from the detective looking forward to reading the resr
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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