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    The Devil's Edge: A Cooper & Fry Mystery
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    The Devil's Edge: A Cooper & Fry Mystery
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    The Devil's Edge: A Cooper & Fry Mystery
    Ebook426 pages6 hours

    The Devil's Edge: A Cooper & Fry Mystery

    By Stephen Booth

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    When nobody's home, the Savages roam ...

    The newspapers call them the Savages: a band of home invaders as merciless as they are stealthy. Usually they don't leave a clue—but this time, they've left a body. The first victim is found sprawled on her kitchen floor, blood soaking the terracotta tiles. Before long, another corpse is discovered, dead of fright. As the toll rises, it's up to DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry to track down the killers. But the enemy isn't who they think it is. Beneath the sinister shadow of a mountain ridge called the Devil's Edge, a twisted game is under way, a game more ruthless than the detectives can imagine.

    Packed with nerve-jangling suspense and moody atmosphere, this is a thriller to rival the very best of Peter Robinson and Peter James.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateAug 26, 2014
    ISBN9780062303141
    Unavailable
    The Devil's Edge: A Cooper & Fry Mystery
    Author

    Stephen Booth

    Stephen Booth's fourteen novels featuring Cooper and Fry, all to be published by Witness, have sold over half a million copies around the world.

    Read more from Stephen Booth

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    Reviews for The Devil's Edge

    3.5/5

    62 ratings7 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Cleverly plotted crime story set in a small (fictional) Peak District village where a number of very wealthy residents have moved in and simmering resentment isn't far below the surface. Sgt Ben Cooper carries the burden of leading the on the ground investigation and can't resist developing theories which run counter to the perceived wisdom of his superiors and the press, keen to sensationalise any crime. An enjoyable read although I immediately recognised the logic of Cooper's assumptions, which seemed pretty obvious, but I didn't work out who the villians were which was quite well disguised.
    • 4/5
      From the Book:

      The Devil’s Edge is a huge rocky ridge in the Peak District. In Stephen Booth’s foreboding and atmospheric murder story, the moorland area above it makes the hero, Ben Cooper, feel as though someone were ‘walking over his grave’. The Edge is compared to a fortress wall, one that should protect the middle-class, rather
      unneighborly village of Riddings from invaders. The trouble is, the Edge isn’t doing its job.

      My Thoughts:

      The 11th book in the series finds Cooper now sergeant and investigating a number of home break ins. An influential couple have been the victims of what until now have been harmless...but this one has gone very nasty. The woman is dead with her head caved in and the husband is on the critical list. The press has dubbed the perpetrators "The Savages" and Cooper secretly agrees.

      Things are so very cool between Cooper and his colleague, Diane Fry. Since Fry has been off on a training assignment Cooper has been appointed to run her old team. That and two very differing points of view, do not make a friendly working relationship.

      The place itself is the leading "character" in this story. Booth has done an admirable job of creating the wild moors with all it's wildlife both real and imagined as parts of vivid stories that those that walk there can't help but conjure. Riddings itself is portrayed as a soulless, heartless place. Cooper can't fathom why these wealthy people chose to live there to begin with. In addition to these late comers are the native long-term inhabitants of the village...the lottery winner...the snoop...the disgraced teacher and all the others. The atmosphere will linger with the reader long after the covers of the book are closed.
    • 3/5
      Lovely easy read. Makes me chuckle that I was on his Devil's Edge a few days ago and having lunch in one of the villages below. I also enjoyed hearing the author 'live' a year or two back at the Bakewell library as he is a very entertaining speaker.
    • 4/5
      Well worth reading - British mystery fans shouldn't miss Stephen Booth.
    • 3/5
      The Devil's Edge is the eleventh book in the Fry and Cooper series by Stephen Booth. As usual it's set in the Peak District, an area he knows well and obviously loves; the location is, as ever, very well realised and takes on the role of another character in the unfolding drama. This time they are investigating a series of random, highly visible smash and grab crimes whereby up-market properties are targeted and their occupants seriously injured, or even killed. Although it's billed as a Cooper and Fry story, it's Ben Cooper who's the main dramatic focus. A series of seemingly random attacks by a group called The Savages is terrorising a small village, and one night it leads to an apparently motiveless murder.

      In this book Booth writes at a fairly pedestrian pace, and the unfolding of the mystery is a bit disappointing. The police, mostly through Cooper, never seem to get to grips with the case and chippy Diane Fry takes a back seat for most of the story. So many routine procedures seem to have been forgotten: wouldn't checking up on the victim's work/business and financial circumstances have been something that was undertaken early on? In The Devil's Edge however, such a basic action doesn't happen until three quarters of the way through.

      I was a bit disappointed with this book to be honest; I enjoy Booth's writing and I like this series, but he seemed to focus too much on his beloved Peak District, rather than the plot and a credible set of suspects. Also, I am getting tired of Fry's constant internal whinging and feeling sorry for herself. Not a bad read, but certainly not "gripping and ingenious", as the front cover leads us to believe.

      © Koplowitz 2013
    • 4/5
      THE DEVIL’S EDGEStephen BoothSomeone is breaking into a gated community in Riddings. This time a woman is found dead and DC Ben Cooper has been dispatched to investigate. The press has labeled the invaders the “Savages.” Every town has its resident snoop and Riddings is no different. Barry Gamble was on the scene right after Zoe Barron was murdered. If Ben wants to know anything about anyone in Riddings, he only has to ask Gamble. Diane Fry is fulfilling her goal of climbing up the ladder but she is finding all she does is push papers around and seldom can sink her teeth into a good case. A little disagreement with a fellow cop at a conference finds her back in E Division as the press liaison and soon has a suspect in the break-ins. Ben’s family and personal life are also in turmoil. His brother, Matt, isn’t doing good with the farm during the sinking economy, and shoots what he thinks are trespassers. Ben is now engaged but not too eager to spread the word past his immediate family. Liz appears to be a whiny clinger, someone who is already getting a bit angered by the amount of time Ben spends on the job. And a friend from high school has just been hired to join his team. Carol Villiers served overseas and is now a widow. Ben has his own theories on the home invasions and isn’t so sure the Savages are to blame. I had always thought since the first book in the series that Ben and Diane would have a love/hate relationship that might evolve into more love than hate. Now Liz and Carol are also in the picture and much to Ben’s fear, Diane appears to be cozying up to Carol. Exactly what is Ben afraid Diane might learn? Another great installment in the Ben Cooper/Diane Fry series.
    • 3/5
      Many fans of Stephen Booth's Fry and Cooper series seem to fall into the pro or anti DS Diane Fry camp pretty firmly. Those in the anti camp may take heart from the fact that she's slightly less present in this book, not making an appearance until later in proceedings. There's also a shift in the power imbalance as Cooper has finally been promoted to the same rank of Detective Sergeant, managing his own team as part of a bigger investigation into a series of home invasions which seem to have culminated in a brutal local murder.It's been a while since I caught back up with this excellent series, and I'm rather pleased to be back. As usual, THE DEVIL'S EDGE provides a solid police procedural plot, with the bonus of a fantastic sense of place. The Devil's Edge from the title is a rock-face looming over an enclosed, private, very English feeling village. Enclosed and private partly because of the people that populate it, and partly because of geography. The cliff edges that surround the village provide Booth with a chance to write an atmospheric tale, with some beautiful descriptive passages, the central premise of which relies heavily on that inward looking persona, and a village populated by wealthy people in enclosed properties who value their privacy. Except, of course, for the obligatory village sticky-nose. Just as this village is reticent to open itself up to the outside world of tourists and visitors, they are reluctant to completely open up to the police, despite the violent home invasion and murder that occurs in their midst. That reticence and desire for privacy plays off nicely against the idea that overhanging them all, facilitating a glimpse into their privacy for some, are the cliffs that impose.Undoubtedly one of the great strengths of all of Booth's novels is that sense of place, and location. On the other hand, with his two main characters, he's set himself the difficult task of writing a long-term prickly relationship. In THE DEVIL'S EDGE that's somewhat relieved by Fry being stationed elsewhere for a large portion of the book, and by creating and building a team of supportive officers around Cooper. When Fry returns, however, and particularly as she has to take a hands on involvement in a case involving Cooper's own brother, there is still a little of the prickle, but there is also a sense of understanding, respect and co-operation. The only major character oddity in the entire mix is Liz - SOCO, girlfriend and finally fiancé of Ben as the book progresses. For some reason she is almost completely absent in that very traumatic Cooper family event, which just didn't make any sense whatsoever. Hopefully there's a plan to resolve that relationship because in this book, it didn't feel real. Then there's this childhood friend, widow, police officer Carol Villiers in the mix. Makes you want to get your hands on the next book asap!