Dead in the Dark by Stephen Booth Blog Tour

Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

on Tour September 25 - October 25, 2018

Synopsis:

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?

My Review:

I enjoy reading British mysteries and this is a good one. It has a good balance of scene description, character development and police procedure. I like that we get to read about some of Cooper's private life as he develops a relationship. Fry is a cooler character, all business it seems. I had difficulty liking her. It was interesting to see how their separate cases overlap.

What I liked best about this novel was the setting. I liked learning about the caves and previous mining in the Peak District. Even more interesting was the immigration aspect of the plot. I did not know that there are nearly a million Poles in England and that Polish is the second most spoken language there. And then there was the topic of modern slave trade, something I knew nothing about.

I do recommend this novel to those who like British mysteries. You'll read of police procedure, get a taste of the detectives' private lives, be immersed in an interesting area of England, and like me, might just be surprised at the resolution of one of the mysteries.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: Witness Impulse
Publication Date: September 25, 2018
Number of Pages: 384
ISBN: 0062876104 (ISBN13: 9780062876102)
Series: Cooper & Frye Mysteries #17
Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads

 

Read an excerpt:

Chapter One

No one wants to die in the dark. To lie alone in the blackness, feeling the chill of death creep slowly over you. Shut away from the light as the fear numbs your limbs and chokes the breath in your throat. The long, long sinking into the cold depths. And then to sense that slipping away. The final slipping away into nothing.
Do you feel that stab of pain as it shoots through your chest? Try to make your breathing more shallow. You have several broken ribs, a fractured arm, perhaps a punctured lung. You can hardly know, in the dark. But you can feel the internal bleeding, the seeping blood as it squeezes your internal organs, bloats your stomach and intestines. You know your injuries are fatal.
That fear of the dark is overwhelming. Because this is true darkness, an eternal night in which your eyes have become useless. Your heart thumps uselessly as you strain to see where you’re lying. You can sense space around you, a slight movement of icy air, a shifting of heavy masses, a solid weight way above your head. A sharp, stabbing pain is in your back from something hard you’re lying on. This isn’t a grave. But it is your tomb.
Does your fear of the dark make any sense? When you’re dead, you go into endless blackness. Yet you’ve always hoped you would get one last glimpse of the light, always prayed that you wouldn’t die alone.
Well, that’s not going to happen. There’s nothing for you to see here. Not a glimmer of light, not a flicker of hope. Only the darkness.
A creak and a rattling makes you freeze. Is someone here? Or some thing? But no . . . you breathe out and release the pain. The noise has quite a different meaning. It’s something huge shifting overhead. It signals the end, the approach of your death. You’re about to be crushed completely.

***
Excerpt from Dead In The Dark by Stephen Booth. Copyright © 2018 by Witness Impulse. Reproduced with permission from Witness Impulse. All rights reserved.
 

Author Bio:

A former newspaper journalist, British author Stephen Booth is the creator of two young Derbyshire police detectives, Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, who have appeared in 17 crime novels, all set in and around England's Peak District.

Catch Up With Stephen Booth On:
stephen-booth.com
Goodreads
Twitter
Facebook

 

Tour Participants:

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I received a complimentary digital copy of this book through Partner in Crime Virtual Book Tours. My comments are an independent and honest review. The rest of the copy of this post was provided by Partneers in Crime Virtual Book Tours.