A Guide to This Gritty British Mystery Series 

Northern England’s Peak District is just coming out of a hot summer when fifteen-year-old Laura Vernon goes missing. The longer helicopters circle overhead, the more uneasy Detective Constable Ben Cooper becomes.

And when a retired miner’s black lab finds her body in the woods, Cooper’s work is only beginning. He has few suspects, and everyone involved is uncooperative.

To make his life even more difficult, newcomer Detective Constable Diane Fry is his newly assigned partner.

Together, they have to untangle the town’s secrets because if they want to know what happened to Laura, they have to dig up the past.

Tucked in a remote area north of England’s Peak District are twelve stone statues, the Nine Virgins.

They’re steeped in dark legends and when a young woman’s body is configured alongside them in a mocking dance, it feels like a message.

For Detective Constables Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, the killing bears a striking resemblance to a brutal attack that left a woman disfigured.

Are the victims somehow connected? And what do either have to do with the Virgins?

A cold front has moved into Northern England’s Peak District but that hasn’t slowed the caseload for Detective Constables Ben Cooper and Diane Fry.

There’s the dead man found on the side of the road. An abused woman dead by apparent suicide curled in the snow. And the granddaughter of a missing pilot who was the only apparent survivor of a plane crash in 1945 who then disappeared.

All hands are on deck, but Cooper can’t walk away from the WWII tragedy. Despite being separated by decades, Cooper believes these cases are linked.

Now, he just has to figure out how.

When a small village in Peak District is plagued by vandalism and theft, the signs all point to one family of delinquents: the Oxleys. 

But when one of the Oxleys is murdered, Detective Constable Ben Cooper is sent to investigate. His boss, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry is also in the town. Her case involves new evidence regarding a missing student.

Her parents refuse to believe she’s dead.

If Cooper and Fry can’t get through to either family, the darkness destroying the town is only going to get worse.

Hours after violating his parole, ex-convict Mansell Quinn is the prime suspect in a murder. He’s spent thirteen years insisting on his innocence for the original murder of his lover and Detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry worry that Quinn is out for revenge.

They head to the outskirts of Derbyshire, where miles of underground caves and tunnels provide the perfect avenue for a killer to disappear. But when another victim is found, evidence shows that Quinn may be innocent after all.

Cooper struggles to let go of the past, but his search for answers leads him to a shocking truth. 

An anonymous caller has the entire department on edge. Detectives Cooper and Fry want to dismiss it as a prank.

But when a woman disappears from a parking garage and clues to the crime appear to be woven throughout the disturbing messages, they can’t dismiss it.

Especially when they discover a woman’s corpse in the woods, left for over a year, the details of her murder line up with the bizarre death ritual the caller described.

Cooper and Fry are drawn deeper into the killer’s mind desperate for the details he won’t give them and how they might stop him before he finds his next victim.

When a reclusive agoraphobic woman is found dead in her home, Detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry are left with little to investigate.

She had no friends, no family, and almost no contact with the outside world. Meanwhile, a young mother and her two children die in a nearby house fire. But the investigation raises more questions than answers.

Adding to the pressure Detective Ben Cooper faces a secret he’d hoped would stay buried and Diane Fry struggles with her own personal and professional problems.

And things get worse when they realize the two cases aren’t just related, but that the two detectives might be the next victims.

When routine building maintenance in the migrant community of Pity Wood Farm in Northern England uncovers a human head preserved in clay, it casts a dark shadow on the history of the small town.

But when police dig up the farmyard, they discover more than one buried body. With local pressure demanding answers, Detectives Cooper and Fry have little forensic evidence to go on.

With nothing but local memories to drive them, Cooper is convinced that somewhere is a third body with the key to unlocking the truth.

In the middle of a foxhunt in the rain-swept Derbyshire moors, hounds find the body of a well-dressed man.

His head was crushed in, but making things confusing, a caller reported a body matching the exact description—half a mile away. Detectives Cooper and Fry are called in to investigate.

As Fry follows the shady business ventures of the victim, Cooper looks for answers in the area’s history.

As the past and present converge, they both stumble on the disturbing truth that it’s all connected through events that occurred not too long ago.

A little girl’s drowning disrupts the May Bank Holiday celebration in Peak District, but for Detective Constable Ben Cooper, it’s personal.

He was a helpless witness to the tragedy and thus becomes entangled with the dead girl’s family. The closer he gets to the Neilds, the more he realizes that one of them has a secret, one dark enough for the entire family to cover up.

His suspicions lead him to the banks of the Peak District river where another shocking discovery awaits.

It’s all anyone can talk about. There’s a band of home invaders stalking Peak District. They’re merciless and stealthy, leaving no clues in their wake.

Until they leave a body. And then another.

As the body count rises, Detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry frantically try to track down the scant clues left behind. Only, this isn’t a case of home invasion gone wrong.

There’s a sinister game playing in the background. One more twisted and ruthless than the detectives can imagine.

Now, time ticks down as the detectives are swept into the deadly game with everything on the line.

The only novella in the Cooper & Fry mystery series, Claws follows Detective Constable Ben Cooper as he’s assigned to the Rural Crimes Team to help resolve a conflict.

It’s one that’s been raging for years, with the prized landscape of Peak District National Park hanging in the balance.

Cooper isn’t sure which side he’s supposed to be on. And time’s running out for him to figure it out.

The moorland is on fire. As the flames sweep across Peak District National Park, hundreds of emergency personnel work to save a once-famous landmark.

The remote inn has long been abandoned and boarded up, but still holds a piece of history.

But once the flames are under control, Detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry discover a body.

Only, it isn’t a recent death. In an investigation that brings Cooper closer to death than he’s ever been as they work to uncover the ties of the past with the crimes of the present.

A man’s body lies in shallow water. It should be easy enough to retrieve him and start the investigation, but the summer rain has swollen rivers and flooded roads.

Travel is nearly unmanageable and forensic examination impossible. Even worse, Detective Ben Cooper is still on leave after an arson attack, leaving Diane Fry with a makeshift team.

If they can’t track down the vague description of a car, the murder might remain a mystery. And to make things worse, Cooper isn’t home recovering, but seems to have vanished altogether.

For centuries, the old Corpse Bridge carried mourners from villages to the burial ground in River Dove. Now, it’s part of the parkland owned by Earl Manby and he plans to turn the burial ground into a car park.

But when bodies start showing up on the bridge, Detective Ben Cooper is called to investigate. He’s still reeling from traumatic events in his recent past, but he knows he has to solve the case if he wants to move forward.

With mounting pressure and no allies, Cooper knows he has to call for help. But doing so might put everyone—and everything—at risk.

Peak District has always been geographically isolated, but the tiny hamlet of Shawhead is more isolated than most. With one road in and out, the residents are used to being cut off from the outside world.

But when a truck delivering animal feed is jammed across the narrow lane and the driver is nowhere to be found, it feels like a deliberate attack. Detective Ben Cooper is sent to investigate but the people of Shawhead are wary of strangers.

Will he have to turn to Detective Sergeant Diane Fry, now working at Nottingham’s Major Crimes Unit? Or will the case take a dramatic turn on its own?

Every year, tourists descend of the scenic valleys and moors of Northern England’s Peak District. They usually don’t leave a trail of bodies behind.

But when the deaths look like a series of tragic suicides, it throws Division E and Detective Ben Cooper scrambling to find answers. Meanwhile, in Nottingham, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry is searching for a key witness in her case.

Against the odds, could the two be on the same investigative trail? 

Ten years ago, Peak District resident Reece Bower was charged with killing his wife. But without a body, the case against him fell apart.

Now Reece has gone missing, raising questions of that original case for Detective Inspector Ben Cooper. Reece’s new wife wants to know where her husband is.

Cooper can’t call Major Crimes Unit Detective Sergeant Diane Fry without a body.

To find Reece, Cooper has to unravel that original case. What really happened to Annette Bower? And who would want revenge for her death?

Kinder Scout is one of the most scenic hikes in Peak District. But the fog can turn the stunning views into a dangerous trap.

That’s what happens to the group led by Darius Roth when one of his party falls to her death.

Only Detective Inspector Ben Cooper doesn’t think Faith Matthew’s death was an accident. Especially when he finds out that one of the group had reason to want her dead. He can’t go to Detective Sergeant Diane Fry for help.

She’s in the middle of her own internal investigation. One that threatens her career and might take Cooper down with it.