Scared to Live
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…
Praise for the Cooper and Fry series‘Stephen Booth’s Black Dog sinks its teeth into you and doesn’t let you go. A dark star may be born!’ Reginald Hill
‘In this atmospheric debut, Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter’ Val McDermid
Stephen Booth was born in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley and has remained rooted to the Pennines during his career as a newspaper journalist. He lives with his wife Lesley in a former Georgian dower house in Nottinghamshire and his interests include folklore, the Internet and walking in the hills of the Peak District. ‘Scared to Live’ is the seventh in the series featuring Derbyshire detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry.