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Ben Cooper & Diane Fry Books in Order

Part ofStephen Booth Books in Order

Explore the Ben Cooper & Diane Fry mysteries by Stephen Booth, with the books in order, quick plot notes, series background, and advice on the best starting point for new readers.

Last updated: December 17, 2025

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Publication Order

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19 books

1

Fall Down Dead

by Stephen Booth

2018

A guided walk on Kinder Scout ends with walker Faith Matthew plunging from a fog‑shrouded edge. The group insists it was an accident, but Cooper suspects a shove rather than a slip, and soon learns several hikers had reasons to want Faith out of the way.

2

Secrets of Death

by Stephen Booth

2017

Tourists are turning up dead at beauty spots across the Peak District in what look like carefully planned suicides. DI Ben Cooper must find the link between them before the next body appears, while in Nottingham Diane Fry hunts a missing witness who may hold the key.

3

Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

2017

Ten years after Reece Bower was cleared of murdering his wife, he suddenly vanishes and his new partner begs the police for help. To find him, Ben Cooper has to reopen the old case and search treacherous caves and abandoned mines where bodies can lie hidden for decades.

4

The Murder Road

by Stephen Booth

2015

In the isolated hamlet of Shawhead, there is only one narrow road in and out. When a feed lorry is found jammed under a bridge, its cab smeared with blood and the driver missing, Ben Cooper uncovers a community bound together by old tragedies and new lies.

5

The Corpse Bridge

by Stephen Booth

2014

For centuries mourners carried coffins over the Corpse Bridge to a riverside burial ground, now earmarked for redevelopment by a local aristocrat. When bodies start appearing on and near the route, Cooper and Fry investigate whether the deaths are protest, coincidence or calculated murder.

6

Already Dead

by Stephen Booth

2013

After weeks of relentless rain, a naked male body is found in a flooded ditch, his clothes and wallet neatly nearby. With Ben Cooper on leave after a devastating arson attack, Diane Fry leads the inquiry, unaware that Cooper is following a dangerous trail of his own.

7

Dead and Buried

by Stephen Booth

2012

Wildfires rip across the Peak District, threatening an abandoned hilltop inn that has stood empty for years. When the smoke clears, firefighters uncover a long‑hidden body, and Cooper and Fry must untangle arson, missing people and a past someone was desperate to bury.

8

The Devil's Edge

by Stephen Booth

2011

A gang of home invaders dubbed the Savages targets wealthy houses below a brooding ridge known as the Devil’s Edge. After one raid leaves a woman dead and another neighbour literally scared to death, Cooper and Fry must work out who is really pulling the strings.

9

Lost River

by Stephen Booth

2010

During a busy bank‑holiday trip to Dovedale, an eight‑year‑old girl drowns before Ben Cooper can reach her. Traumatized, he is drawn into her family’s secrets, while a second death by water suggests the tragedy may be part of something darker.

10

The Kill Call

by Stephen Booth

2009

On a rain‑lashed moor, foxhounds discover the body of a well‑dressed stranger, yet an anonymous caller insists the corpse lies elsewhere. Cooper and Fry delve into the charged world of hunting, saboteurs and horse dealing, where old loyalties can turn lethal.

11

Dying to Sin

by Stephen Booth

2007

Conversion work at remote Pity Wood Farm turns up a human hand, then two skeletons buried years apart. With only scraps of local gossip and the opaque Sutton brothers to go on, Cooper and Fry must piece together who was buried there and why.

12

Claws

by Stephen Booth

2007

Seconded to the Rural Crime Squad, Ben Cooper investigates wildlife offences on the Dark Peak. An illegal haul found in a terraced house leads him into a bitter struggle over protected birds and moorland, where the line between protector and predator keeps shifting.

13

Scared To Live

by Stephen Booth

2006

A shut‑in is shot dead through her bedroom window, and hours later a house fire kills a mother and two children on the same hillside. Working parallel investigations, Cooper and Fry uncover a link that points toward a meticulous, unpredictable killer.

14

The Dead Place

by Stephen Booth

2005

An anonymous caller obsessed with death phones the police promising a perfectly executed killing. When women begin to disappear and unexplained human bones surface, Cooper and Fry race to identify the dead place the caller keeps talking about before he strikes again.

15

One Last Breath

by Stephen Booth

2004

Thirteen years after confessing to murdering his lover, Mansell Quinn walks out of prison and disappears. As those who helped convict him start to die, Cooper and Fry search Derbyshire’s cave systems and buried scandals before vengeance claims another life.

16

Blind to the Bones

by Stephen Booth

2003

A young man from the notorious Oxley family is found bludgeoned to death on the moors, while evidence resurfaces in a two‑year‑old missing student case. Cooper and Fry probe the bleak village of Withens, where almost everyone has something to hide.

17

Blood on the Tongue

by Stephen Booth

2002

In a bitter Derbyshire winter, a young woman is found frozen in the snow, a dead man turns up by the roadside, and a visitor arrives seeking answers about a wartime bomber crash. Cooper and Fry uncover how old secrets still bleed into the present.

18

Dancing with the Virgins

by Stephen Booth

2001

After a woman is left horribly scarred near the Nine Virgins stone circle and a cyclist’s body is later arranged among the monoliths, Cooper and Fry must sift local legends, jealousies and rituals to unmask a killer using the landscape as stage.

19

Black Dog

by Stephen Booth

2000

When teenager Laura Vernon goes missing in the Peak District and is later found murdered, local DC Ben Cooper is paired with prickly newcomer Diane Fry. Their uneasy partnership exposes old grudges, class tensions, and a close‑knit village full of dangerous secrets.

Series background & context

The Ben Cooper and Diane Fry novels follow two young detectives working the same patch of rural England from very different angles. What begins with a murder in a summer heatwave in Black Dog grows into a long‑running exploration of crime, community and change in the Derbyshire Peak District.

Ben Cooper is the local boy. He grew up in a farming family, knows the lanes and moors by heart and treats the job as a way of looking after his own people. Empathetic, observant and sometimes too willing to shoulder other people’s burdens, he often finds the key to a case in tiny details of landscape or village life that outsiders miss.

Diane Fry arrives from the city with a very different perspective. Ambitious, guarded and sharper around the edges, she has little patience for rural nostalgia and is more comfortable with policy, procedure and hard questioning. Her own complicated family history and long‑held secrets gradually surface across the books, shaping the wary, sometimes combustible partnership she forms with Cooper.

The series is set around the fictional town of Edendale but constantly roams the Peaks. Each investigation uses a distinctive corner of the landscape: stone circles and ancient legends in Dancing with the Virgins, snowbound hills and an old bomber crash in Blood on the Tongue, isolated farming hamlets and feuding families in Blind to the Bones and Dying to Sin, cave systems in One Last Breath, foxhunting country in The Kill Call, moorland fires in Dead and Buried, flooded valleys in Already Dead, old funeral routes in The Corpse Bridge and dangerous mountain paths in Fall Down Dead.

Crimes in these books are rarely simple. A body on the moor might be tied to wartime secrets, a village fire, an urban gang or the pressure of tourism and second homes. Cooper and Fry have to navigate office politics as well as local loyalties, and the impact of each case lingers, so their personal lives and careers shift noticeably from one novel to the next.

Readers who like atmospheric British police procedurals tend to appreciate the steady pace, detailed sense of place and evolving relationship at the heart of the series. Although each mystery stands on its own, the emotional arc for Ben Cooper, Diane Fry and their colleagues builds book by book, which is why many people choose to read the Ben Cooper and Diane Fry series in order from Black Dog onward.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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All 19 Ben Cooper & Diane Fry Books in Order (2026)