In northern England, Detective Constable Ben Cooper investigates the death of fifteen-year-old Laura Vernon with the help of his new partner Diane Fry.

Guilt, sacrifice and redemption in a freezing Peak District winter feature in this tense psychological thriller from the acclaimed author of BLACK DOG and DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS.It wasn't the easiest way to commit suicide. Marie Tennent seems to have curled up in the freezing snow on Irontongue Hill and stayed there until her body was frosted over like a supermarket chicken.And hers isn't the only death the Derbyshire police have to contend with...

And as it grew dark, Withens became almost entirely silent. Except for the screaming.'It's nearly May Day, and deep in the Dark Peak lies the village of Withens. A young man has been killed - battered to death and left high on the desolate moors for the crows to find.Derbyshire detective DC Ben Cooper meets an impenetrable wall of silence from the man's relatives who form Withens' oldest family, the Oxleys, descendants of the first workers who tunnelled...

On a rain-swept hillside, hounds from the local foxhunt discover the body of a well-dressed man. At that exact moment, an anonymous caller reports the same body . . . lying half a mile away. It's only the first in a series of baffling clues as Ben Cooper and Diane Fry'partners and rivals on the detective force 'plunge into a case involving horses, spectacular wealth, and a mysterious "plague village" where a centuries-old outbreak of Black Death has...

A dark night, an open bedroom window – and three bullets that strike from the darkness. The victim of the shocking assassination is a harmless middle-aged woman, living a reclusive life in a quiet Peak District village. But is she quite so harmless as she seems?Detective Sergeant Diane Fry knows that innocence is no defence against death. She's already combing through the blackened wreckage of a family's life, sifting the tragic possessions of a...