Stephen Booth Books In Order

Publication Order of Ben Cooper & Diane Fry Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Stephen Booth is an award winning author from England, who likes to write his novels based on the mystery, thriller, and crime fiction genres. He is particularly famous for creating the British Crime series called Cooper and Fry series set in Derbyshire. Author Booth is also popular for developing the characters of two young police detectives from Derbyshire named DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper, both of whom feature in his well known crime series. There is a total of 15 books published in the crime series written by Booth, all of which depict the characters of Fry and Cooper. The specialty of the series is that all the novels of the series are set in the atmospheric and beautiful location of England, the Peak District in Derbyshire. The success of the crime series has helped author Booth to become one of the finalists of the Gold Dagger Award and receive a nomination for the Anthony Award for two times in his writing career. He has gone on to win the Barry Award in the category of the Best Crime Novel of England. He was even shortlisted one for the Theakston’s Novel of the Year Award in the crime genre.

The character of Ben Cooper created by author Booth was one of the finalists of the Sherlock Award in the category of the best detective developed by a British novelist and in the year 2003, Booth was presented with the Library Award Dagger by the Association of Crime Writers. This was given to him by considering the fact that his novels have given the most pleasure to the readers. The Cooper and Fry series has been published worldwide and translated into more than 15 languages. Author Booth was born in the year 1952 in Burnly, Lancashire, The United Kingdom. He is the son of Edha and Jim Booth. When he was 2 years old, his parents shifted to Blackpool along with him. There, he joined the Arnold School. Before going on to become a full time writer, he used to work as a newspaper journalist for numerous magazines, including Huddersfield Examiner, Workshop Guardian, and Wilmslow Advertiser. It was in the year 2001 that author Booth gave up his journalist job after working for 27 years and began writing full time. As of today, author Booth lives in Nottinghamshire along with his wife Lesly.

Since the year 2000, Booth has written and published at least one book every year in the Cooper & Fry crime series. Currently, he is working on the plot of the latest book of the series. The most recent novel in the series was published in the year 2015 and was titled as ‘The Murder Road’. This series is still going on and author Booth is expected to publish a few more novels in the series in the coming days. The recent success that author Booth received with his crime series has helped him to obtain a deal for developing the crime series into a television series. The work on the television series is expected to be started very soon. In recent years, author Stephen Booth has been supporting the Love Libraries campaign of The United Kingdom, which has helped him to become a Library Champion. Booth has even represented the British Literature at the Helsinki Book Fair. He has also appeared at the Writers’ Festival in Melbourne, Australia, along with Alexander McCall Smith. Author Booth has worked on a documentary on the famous French detective named Vidocq, for the 20th Century Fox. In spite of all these activities in his life, author Booth manages to spend most of time staying at his home and writing crime novels.

The Cooper & Fry series written by Stephen Booth consists of 15 books in total published from 2000 to 2015. This series features the characters of Diane Fry and Ben Cooper as detectives in the Derbyshire police department, who always try to solve the murder cases happening around them. The debut novel of the series was published under the title ‘Black Dog’. It was released by the Pocket Books publishing house in 2000. The setting of this book is done in Peak District, Derbyshire, England, The United Kingdom, featuring the important characters in the form of Ben Cooper, Diane Fry, Laura Vernon, and Harry Dickinson. At the start of the book, it is shown that the 15 year old girl named Laura Vernon is being searched all over the Peak District of Northern England with the help of helicopters. With continuous searching and not being able to find Laura, Detective Constable Ben Cooper begins to dread quietly for the worst. Soon, her dead body is found from the deep woods, after which Ben Cooper begins his investigation by making a list of the uncooperative suspects. One among them is a retired miner named Harry Dickinson. It was Harry’s black Labrador which was able to discover the dead body of Laura Vernon. As a result, Cooper was having a firm suspicion on Harry Dickinson. The other suspects included the wealthy parents of Laura. Later in the investigation, Ben Copper gets teamed up with an ambitious newcomer named Detective Constable Diane Fry, but finds uneasiness while working with her. Cooper goes on to test the family ties, loyalties, and friendships of Laura’s family and decides that in order to know the present situation in a better way, he must uncover the past.

The next novel in the Cooper and Fry series written by author Stephen Booth was published as ‘Dancing With the Virgins’. It was released by the Pocket Books publishing house in 2001. The story of this novel also takes place in the Peak District of the Northern England. At the beginning of the story, it is shown that there are stone monoliths of the ancient time standing in a remote region of the Peak District. The stone monoliths were popularly known as the Nine Virgins and were believed to harbor some dark legends. Now, a young cyclist dead body is discovered beside the Nine Virgins, whose limbs are cut and arranged in the posture of mocking dance. This killing was similar to one of the earlier attacks in which a woman was left deeply disfigured. The detectives Fry and Cooper are called on to investigate the matter, but they find a lot of questions without answers. They begin to wonder there was a connection between the two attacks and why were both the ladies carrying precious objects with them at the time of the attacks. They also try to know about the 2 mysterious drifters, who were practicing strange rituals at the crime scene. The only thing that Cooper and Fry seem certain about is that innocent lives have been taken in the name of rituals under the shadow of the Nine Virgins.

2 Responses to “Stephen Booth”

1. Catherine Turner: 3 years ago

   When is the new Stephen book out also when can I get the nine virgins book and untitled

   Reply
2. David Gascoigne: 3 years ago

   A brilliant series and left wanting more.

   Reply