Blind To The Bones

Ben Cooper & Diane Fry #4

by Stephen Booth

Booth, Stephen, Blind To The Bones

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Fiction, British Literature, Thriller, Procedural, Mystery Thriller

473 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Stephen Booth is the author of 18 novels in the Cooper & Fry series, all set around England's Peak District, and a standalone novel DROWNED LIVES, published in August 2019.

The Cooper & Fry series has won awards on both sides of the Atlantic, and Detective Constable Cooper has been a finalist for the Sherlock Award for Best Detective created by a British author. The Crime Writers’ Association presented Stephen with the Dagger in the Library Award for “the author whose books have given readers most pleasure.”

The novels are sold all around the world, with translations in 16 languages. The most recent title is FALL DOWN DEAD.

A new Stephen Booth standalone novel with a historical theme, DROWNED LIVES, will be published in August 2019:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drowned-Live...

In recent years, Stephen has become a Library Champion in support of the UK’s ‘Love Libraries’ campaign. He's represented British literature at the Helsinki Book Fair in Finland, appeared with Alexander McCall Smith at the Melbourne Writers’ Festival in Australia, filmed a documentary for 20th Century Fox on the French detective Vidocq, taken part in online chats for World Book Day, taught crime writing courses, and visited prisons to talk to prisoners about writing.

He lives in Nottinghamshire.

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the fourth book in the Ben Cooper/Diane Fry mystery series, "focused" on the murder of a local man and the two year old disappearance of a 19 year old girl in the small hamlet of Withens. The two cases separate our two protagonists - initially. In a word this book was a slog, about half way through it I just gritted my teeth and gutted it out to the finish - much like running the last half of a marathon - uphill.

As in this author's other books there is an interesting plot/mystery with some very crafty twists and turns - and all the idiosyncrasies, secrets and alliances of a small rural town are captured here. Unfortunately this is all buried under random observations and ruminations on things such as grocery shopping and supermarkets, birds and rats, maps and geography, backyards and landscaping (or the lack thereof), tunnel building, the introduction and numerous re-introductions of the same characters and a multitude of other extraneous and random topics.

There are some authors who can switch from story-line to observations to "inside the characters' heads" musings - P.D. James & Minette Walters come to mind - without missing a beat. Unfortunately, that's not true for this book. It's not that the diversions are poorly written - some are even poignant - it's the sheer number of them. At first they're aggravating, then inane and finally just tiresome, continually testing the reader's stamina.

I have read all the previous books in this series and unfortunately the magic of the first, "Black Dog", has yet to be recaptured which probably means this will be my last Cooper/Fry mystery.

[Deb Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stephen Booth writes such an engrossing and character-driven story that sometimes I forget it is a police procedural at all. This is not to say that the author veers from his plot's focus; it is just that he gives the reader such a complete picture that I find myself becoming as caught-up in the understanding of all that, of seeing these people and places so clearly that the crime and its solution is just the vehicle for the real story.

[LJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

BLIND TO THE BONES – Okay
Stephen Booth – 4th in series
It's almost May Day, and on the desolate moors of Dark Peak the villagers of Withens are dying. One has been battered to death and left for the crows to find; another chose the wrong time to call on a neighbor. And one has been dead for two years - though not everyone will believe it.

I know others love his books and I’ve bought and read all four, but this falls into the category of authors I just “don’t get.” I find the books very slow reading and the characters rather flat and uninteresting. Unfortunately, he’s just not my cup of tea.

[Jo Ring · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good - want to read the next one now

[Ana Goulart · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fraca classificação que atribuí ao livro não se deve tanto à história ou às personagens (de que gostei) mas ao modo como a história é contada, ao desenrolar da narrativa. É extremamente morosa, cheia de pequenas histórias que até podem ajudar o leitor a captar o ambiente pretendido, mas que fazem perder de vista a história principal. O livro está centrado na investigação de uma morte, de um desaparecimento e de roubo de antiguidades, que acabam por se cruzar entre si. Foi o primeiro livro que li deste autor, espero que os outros sejam mais do meu agrado.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book and discover a new British police procedural. I had not read any previous Cooper/Fry novels, but had heard good things about this one. So I tried. And tried. It was a slog for me, and it never really took off. Points for a cool idea of a plot, and there's definitely some good dialogue. But for me, it seemed to be stuck in "granny gear."

[Dez Nemec · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was goes on the DNF pile. It's not that it's terrible, I just could not get into it. And I've already read 280 pages. That's enough!

[Becky 🐆 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do really enjoy this series of books but I can never manage to get through them as quickly as I do other books. They’re always very interesting and I like the characters, it helps that they’re all set in the area I’ve lived in all my life! But I do feel like they can be a little over descriptive at times and could be just as good if they were slightly shorter. I have the rest of this series and I’ll definitely be reading them! I’ve never yet figured out any of Stephen Booth’s twists!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cooper and Fry...what interesting characters with insufferable personalities. The author seems to delight in portraying Cooper and Fry.as unlikable...yet they excel in getting the case solved. This one also has a great deal of history and geography of the area blended in beautifully with the storyline. One of the best aspects of this series is that the reader seldom has the murderer correct. So there is always mystery to these mysteries.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

The saga continues in this well written series. Awaiting the next book through our Inter Library system.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading it! I love how the characters and their relationships develop from one novel to the next

[M Eve · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only reason I didn't give this a full five stars was that apparently you really should read the earlier books in the series. I still don't know what 'dirt' Diane Fry had on Cooper. Other than that a very well written 'slow burner' British police proceedural. I've already bought and am starting the next in the series: 'One Last Breath'.

[Barbara Band]

Couldn't finish this. Usually like crime novels but this was just so disjointed with a lot of characters introduced very quickly that I just couldn't seem to focus on it. Started reading it because it was my Book Group selection but gave up (not something I do very often with books) ... think maybe if it had been in the summer I'd have perservered but I was too busy and my head full of too many lists. Found out afterwards that it was one of a series which may have explained things as possibly the writer assumed that a reader would have read the other books first and therefore been familiar with some of the characters and their history.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Booth is a very good writer. In this the 4th book in the Cooper/Fry series, he extends himself beyond the basic crime narrative to give us much about traditions and details which are interesting, but extraneous to the central story. This distracted me a bit, although some of the descriptions were highly interesting. Nevertheless, a great outing by Mr. Booth. Can’t wait to get the next book in the series, One Last Breath, on my way to the 18th, Fall Down Dead. Blind to the Bones is highly readable and recommendable.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mystery involving the Yorkshire moors, morris dancing, a missing college girl and one police officer's search for a long lost sister. Booth is unparalleled at creating a truly gothic atmosphere. He also does something I really like in a mystery--he doesn't spell it all out for you. Sometimes, what people aren't saying is as important as what they do.

[Monika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nu när jag läser böckerna i den här serien med något kortare uppehåll mellan dem så hade jag hoppats på att det skulle ge en extra kick. Det är ju betydligt roligare att läsa om man minns vad som hände i förra boken. Men Blindspel gör mig faktiskt lite besviken. Läs mer på min blogg

[Miriam Smith (A Mother’s Musings) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the plot in this book and have given 4 stars for the story. The characters are believable and the stories that come together are interesting and intriguing. It's a great detective novel the way they should be written, The scenery descriptions are wonderful and there is a lot of attention to detail here. I will be reading more by Stephen and would recommend this book to anyone.

[MadProfessah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blind to the Bones is the fourth book in the police-procedural, murder-mystery series featuring Detective Sergeant Deborah Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper written by Stephen Booth set in the Peak District in the north of England. Blind to the Bones is similar to the other books in the series. In the first three books, there have been three very different but compelling mysteries in that Cooper and Fry are the main protagonists and the plot revolves around each of them solving crimes. This time instead of solving crimes together, each one of them has their own assignment, which eventually they both reluctantly recognize are linked. One of the curious and compelling features at the heart of these books is the fractious relationship between these two very different police officers. They are colleagues but they are certainly not friends. But they are on a small police force so they often need to work together to successfully do their jobs “to serve and protect“ the public.

There are three main mysteries in Blind to the Bones: 1) Who killed the local man whose body was found in an abandoned train tunnel? 2) What happened to the woman who has been missing for just over two years and whose cellphone has just down up? 3) What crimes is that family with multiple delinquent children hiding? Of course, with all good mysteries there are several other smaller questions/puzzles to be answered as well.

Blind to the Bones is an unusual entry in the series because much of it takes place in the small town of Withens, not the typical setting of Edendale, which is where Cooper is from. Cooper ends up being seconded to the Rural Crime Task Force to work on the dead body in the train tunnel while Fry gets assigned to deal with the delusional parents of the missing college student (who even after 2 years of not seeing their daughter refer to her in the present tense and have kept her things all over the house intact). Fry gets stuck working with the corpulent and indolent Detective Constable Gavin Murfin while Fry has his own adventures in Withens and beyond.

Overall, Blind to the Bones was not as compelling a read to me as the first three books in the Cooper and Fry series. I’m not exactly sure why. I think it might have been because by having each of the protagonists work separately on their own mystery it reduced the amount of interaction they had with each other, and one of the key features of the series has been the emotional frisson between Cooper and Fry. Another quibble that I had with this entry was that it was resolved just a little too neatly for my taste, in such a way that it seemed unlikely the reader could have found the answers on their own, which seems a bit unfair. Regardless, I do think I will continue reading the series because I am curious to see how things develop between Cooper and Fry in future books, especially now that progress has been made an important project that Fry was working on in multiple books.

[Cathy Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the way Stephen Booth has woven area history into his fourth Cooper & Fry mystery, Blind to the Bones. England's Peak District is incredibly beautiful, but the tiny village of Withens, tucked away in a fold of the landscape, seems to have been tarred with the ugly brush, and it's got everything to do with the building of the railway, its tunnels, and how the workers were treated. Withens is a place that's isolated by history and topography, and the Oxley family takes that isolation to the furthest extreme possible. Reading about Withens gave me the creeps.

The setting, the history, and the mystery are first-rate. Booth really had me scratching my head, trying to figure out what was going on and who was responsible. Front and center are police officers Diane Fry and Ben Cooper. Diane is the outsider. You've heard of Type A people? Well, Diane Cooper is Type AAA, and she and DC Ben Cooper, an easy-going local lad, are like chalk and cheese. Every time Cooper has to deal with Fry, he feels like he's barely survived a life-threatening situation. Fry's concentration on the missing Emma Renshaw dredges up painful memories of the disappearance of her own sister while Cooper's attempts at solving the string of thefts has him being sent time after time after time to try to wrest any tidbit of information from the Oxleys, something that becomes a running joke in the book.

There is a lot to like about this book and this series, and it's a favorite of several of my friends. However, for some strange reason that I cannot put my finger on, I just can't warm up to Diane Fry and Ben Cooper. I love the Peak District, but I've given it four books for me to warm up to these characters, and it's not working. It's time to move on. But don't let that keep you from meeting Cooper and Fry. As I said, several of my friends love it, and there's no reason why you can't, too.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Things have changed for Ben Cooper. He has moved out of the family home and farm and now lives on his own. He has a new boss, Diane Fry, who got the promotion he thought would be his and with whom he has a fraught relationship. But some things never change when you're a policeman. Crime is always there to be solved.
A young man, Neil Granger, has been found murdered. He is part of a large family in a tiny village where those who built the tunnel system for the railway once lived. The family is blamed for all the petty crime that occurs and for some reason are not being cooperative with the police investigation. Fry's time is being taken up on a cold case. Emma Renshaw disappeared two years ago and is considered dead by everyone except her parents. Her cell phone has just turned up and has brought the case back into focus. Then there is the crime ring that is stealing antiques, probably to sell overseas. In the midst of this, Ben discovers a deep secret about Diane that will affect her whole life going forward.

This is the fourth book in this series. Ben Cooper is the ultimate good guy, unassuming, easy to get along with and cunningly smart enough to solve whatever crimes he encounters. Diane Fry is a more complex character, her unhappy childhood leaving her unwilling to trust anyone or have friends. The tension between the two provides as much of the book's structure as do the crimes they solve. This book is recommended for mystery readers who enjoy a long series.

[Suzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Publisher Description
This taut, atmospheric thriller is perfect for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Peter James.

A death in the family from hell brings detectives Fry and Cooper to a remote and unfriendly rural community in their fourth psychological thriller.

“And as it grew dark, Withens became almost entirely silent. Except for the screaming.”

A small village in the Peak District, Withens is troubled by theft and vandalism, mostly generated by a family of local delinquents, the Oxleys. Now the town is the focus of a murder investigation. A man’s body has been found on the bleak moors nearby, and the victim is an Oxley. To crack the case, DC Ben Cooper must break open the degenerate clan.

His boss, DS Diane Fry, is also in Withens. Grim new evidence has turned up in the case of a missing student, but her parents refuse to believe she could be dead.

The darkness in Withens’s heart is growing. And things are only going to get nastier.

MY THOUGHTS:
Ben Cooper is learning to live alone and to expand his horizons---though sometimes he gets more than he expected. DS Diane Fry is a difficult character to unwrap, though I did get some insight to her stiff and demanding façade in this addition to the series.
The storyline is compelling, dark, and gritty---highlighting the injustices of a past that bleeds into the future with every generation. An intense and addicting series.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much better than the Cooper and Fry I read recently! This one is much older too (this is #4, that was #15), and really, I think these need to be read in order. But, the library just started taking holds and allowing us to take them at the door, so I had to take them in the order given.

The one thing that was SO much better than the other was the lack of endless pages of highway numbers and village names! I enjoyed the background of morris, and learning about well dressing was fascinating!

The two murders were interesting too. Of course, we start out wondering if their investigations will cross, so Fry and Cooper will work together. It isn't spoiling anything to say, yes, it will, and they will work together (on the dust jacket blurb)! A young woman missing for two years, and now the murder of a young man she grew up with is found murdered. My heart went out to her mother, I can't imagine a missing child, let alone years.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fourth Cooper and Fry book and one I chose because I found the previous three to be solid. This one, not so much. I enjoy Ben Cooper and the rural English setting, but this one at 608 pages felt bloated and too long to carry out the series' normal tepid pace. It probably would have worked out fine if edited down a couple of hundred pages. The story hinges on a death and a missing person, with most fingers pointing to an insular family in a remote village with an interesting history. There are some characters that prove fascinating and some history of the area that I haven't looked to verify but liked. The side story of Fry and her missing sister comes out well here. I will read book five, but with some concern that it is nearly 600 pages.

[Shirley Hartman-Rozee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This latest book in the Cooper-Fry series details the search of family members for lost or missing members, opens up several suspicious-death mysteries, depicts the vivid dance of the Border Rats as they illustrate past history, and finds Ben Cooper thrust into a small village after having been warned by “foreigners” or outsiders to be extremely cautious in that area. Ben is instrumental in saving the life of the youngest child of a family in this village and begins to understand the choice made by the family to isolate themselves.
One of the most interesting things in the Cooper/Fry series is the titles of the books.

[R.L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The description of the village of Withens was memorable and the family of Oxley's were, too. I have met people like this, might even be related to them. The fine detail of the story draws attention not only to the surroundings of the Peak District, but also to a smattering of story threads that seem impossible to tie into one case, but Mr. Booth manages to deftly create enough suspense to keep the pages turning until the end. I always love his writing and I look forward to the next one.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very different crime read, not fast paced or gruesome, threatening or cliff hanger but rather a gentle bimble through local dark peak and the villages and characters that inhabit them. Murder yes and one that makes you think, it moves along in the same way that a 'normal' investigation would do, multiple lines of enquiry, red herrings, staff conflicts etc. So I enjoyed the slower pace as it made me think and read rather than bolt though it.

[Thejelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

More high-quality stuff from a writer who I don’t think gets the acclaim he deserves. Set, as ever, in Derbyshire (though this time on its very edge on the border up in Longdendale), it is a taut thriller which goes along at just the right pace _ moving the plot along while still having time to develop characters effectively. A really good read.

[Christina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting through this book. It seemed very disjointed. The plotline about the disappearance of Emma was clear, but I kept getting the other characters confused with one another and with the murdered man. And then there was the plotline involving Diane's sister, who shows up at Ben's door. And who is the owner of the fancy car he spots her driving?

[Diana Ellis · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed response.

Steven Booth researches historical and geographical facts and he likes to entwine his plots within the data. At times, it is very successful, but in this book the story ends up as repetitive and confusing in parts. As usual, the characters are superbly drawn.

[Jay Fusco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book tedious and way too long. Over 530 pages could have easily cut down to 400. I liked the earlier books in the series but I found the characters hard to take. I may read one more to see if I still like them.