CLAWS

By Stephen Booth

Synopsis

Derbyshire Police Detective DC Ben Cooper is on assignment to the Rural Crime Squad to investigate wildlife crime. On the wild Peak District moorlands, he steps into the middle of a conflict that has been raging for years over one of the most prized landscapes in the National Park. Many lives are at stake. And, in this battle, not all the victims are human.

Sample Player

Narrator	Nick Boulton
Length	1hr 45mins
Catalogue No.	10534
Publisher	Clipper Audio; 2007

Other audiobooks by Stephen Booth

ALREADY DEAD

A summer of endless rain leaves the officers of Derbyshire's CID with a problem. They have discovered a man's body lying in shallow water, but torrential rain has made forensic examination impossible. And as the rain turns into a deluge, it emerges that DS Ben Cooper is not at home, but has vanished into thin air... Book 13 of the series.

BLACK DOG

When teenager Laura Vernon goes missing during a hot summer in the Peak District, the local police mount a full-scale search. D C Ben Cooper's instinctive feelings about the case are called into question by the arrival of Diane Fry, a ruthlessly ambitious detective from another division. Soon Ben and Diane discover that to understand the present, they must also understand the past.

BLIND TO THE BONES

A small village in the Peak District, Withens is troubled by theft and vandalism, mostly generated by local family-from-hell, the Oxleys. Now it is the focus of a murder investigation – a man's body has been found on the bleak moors nearby, and the man is an Oxley. To crack the case, DC Ben Cooper must break open the delinquent clan. Book 4 of the series.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE

Marie Tennant's death is suicide, but when other bodies appear DS Diane Fry tries to build a murder enquiry. Her partner, DC Ben Cooper, seems to be wasting police time trying to solve a fifty year old, wartime mystery, but a vicious attack suggests the past may provide a motive for the present violence! Book 3 of the series.

THE CORPSE BRIDGE

The old Corpse Bridge is the route taken for centuries by mourners from the villages of Derbyshire to a burial ground across the River Dove. When plans are announced to deconsecrate the burial ground and turn it into a car park, bodies begin to appear once again on the road. Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper knows that he must unravel the mystery, but when the case reaches breaking point, he has to make a call that could put everything - and everyone - at risk... Book 14 of the series.

DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS

When the body of a woman is discovered among the stone ring of cairns, known as the Nine Virgins, on the windswept moors of Derbyshire, there is no shortage of suspects, each with their own guilty secret. But what DS Fry and DC Cooper lack is any kind of motive. It seems the strange behaviour of the moor's inhabitants may lie somewhere in the past, in a terrible crime yet to be discovered… Book 2 of the series.

DEAD AND BURIED

When an intruder breaks into an abandoned pub, DS Ben Cooper is on the case - and he swiftly unearths a pair of grim surprises. The first is evidence of a years-old double murder. And the second is a corpse, newly dead...What links the three deaths? For Cooper and his rival DI Diane Fry, it's the most twisted investigation of their lives... Book 12 of the series.

DEAD IN THE DARK

Ten years ago, Reece Bower was accused of killing his wife, Annette, but with no trace of her remains, the case against him collapsed. Now Reece himself has disappeared, and his new wife wants answers. Detective Ben Cooper's search moves into the isolated depths of Lathkilldale caves, but the question is: who would want revenge for the death of Annette Bower?

THE DEAD PLACE

When a caller taunts the police with talk of a 'dead place' and the threat of an imminent killing, most think it's a sick hoax. But Detective Diane Fry is sure there's a murderer at work. Meanwhile, her colleague DC Ben Cooper is investigating Derbyshire's first case of body snatching, entering the macabre world of those whose lives revolve around the deceased and their disposal. Book 6 of the series.

THE DEVIL'S EDGE

The newspapers call them the Savages: a band of home invaders as merciless as they are stealthy. Usually they don't leave a clue. This time, they've left a body. 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. Book 11 of the series.

DYING TO SIN

Detectives Fry and Cooper have two unidentified skeletons on their hands at a deserted farm in the middle of nowhere. Slowly they piece together a tale of crime and violence coupled with superstition. Meanwhile the body count starts to rise. Book 8 of the series.

FALL DOWN DEAD

The mountain of Kinder Scout offers the most incredible views of the Peak District, but when thick fog descends there on a walking party led by enigmatic Darius Roth, this spectacular landscape is turned into a death trap that claims a life. For DI Ben Cooper however, something about the way Faith Matthew fell to her death suggests it was no accident, and he quickly discovers more than one of the hikers may have had reason to murder their companion. To make things worse, his old colleague DS Diane Fry finds herself at centre of an internal investigations storm that threatens to drag Cooper down with it.

THE KILL CALL

On a rain-swept Derbyshire moor, hounds from the local foxhunt find the body of a well-dressed man whose head has been crushed. Called in to investigate DS Diane Fry and DC Ben Cooper become entangled in the violent world of hunting and hunt saboteurs, horse theft and a little-known sector of the meat trade. Book 9 of the series.

LOST RIVER

A May Bank Holiday in the Peak District is ruined when an eight year-old girl drowns among crowds of visitors in the tourist hotspot of Dovedale. For Detective Constable Ben Cooper - a helpless witness - the incident is not only traumatic, but it leads him to become involved in the tangled lives of the Neilds, the dead girl's family. Book 10 in the series.

THE MURDER ROAD

For the Peak District hamlet of Shawhead, there's only one road in and one road out. Its residents are accustomed to being cut off from the world by snow or floods. But when a lorry is found jammed in the narrow lane, with no sign of the driver except for a blood-stained cab, it's the beginning of something much more sinister... Ben Cooper and his team find links to the village, a suicide, and a death on a nearby road that happened years before. Book 15 of the series.

ONE LAST BREATH

The vast labyrinth of caverns, passages and subterranean rivers beneath the Peak District are a major tourist attraction. But this summer Detectives Cooper and Fry discover that not all the darkness is underground, and not all the devils are folk legends. Mingling with the holidaymakers is a convicted killer, bent on revenge. Book 5 of the series.

SCARED TO LIVE

When a woman and two children die in a housefire, it is a tragedy, but perhaps not a mystery. The shooting of an ordinary middle-aged woman, Rose Sheppard, is a mystery. Then DS Fry discovers a possible link between these two incidents! Book 7 of the series.

SECRETS OF DEATH

A series of suicides throughout the Peaks throws Detective Inspector Ben Cooper and his team in Derbyshire into a race against time to find a connection to these seemingly random acts. Meanwhile, in Nottingham Detective Sergeant Diane Fry finds a key witness has vanished...But what are the mysterious Secrets of Death? And is there one victim whose fate wasn't suicide at all? Book 16 of the series.