One Last Breath [Paperback]

Stephen Booth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2004

Looking to the original case files for clues to the fugitive's wherabouts, detectives Diane Fry and Ben Cooper discover there may be other potential victims out there. And as the son of the officer responsible for putting Quinn behind bars, Ben realizes that his own name could be high on the list.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British author Booth's fifth crime novel (after Blind to the Bones) is as dark and winding as the labyrinth of caves below its Derbyshire setting. In 1990, Det. Constable Ben Cooper's father arrests Mansell Quinn for the brutal murder of his lover. Thirteen years later, Quinn disappears upon his release from prison, his ex-wife is immediately slain, and another murder soon follows. Convinced they're facing a revenge spree, the police mount a manhunt, probing physical clues and the messy web of relationships that Quinn has not quite left behind. The deeper Cooper and his colleagues probe, the more convinced Cooper becomes that Quinn was innocent of the original crime, a belief that deepens his sense that as the son of the arresting officer, he's personally at risk. Though the pace and focus falter slightly toward the end, this is intelligent, suspenseful reading that should continue to build Booth's U.S. audience. A master of psychological suspense, Booth hauntingly evokes the ambiguities of place and the enduring complexity of human relationships. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Praise for Blind to the Bones: 'This is another very fine book, masterfully plotted and filled with real flesh-and-blood personalities.' Susanna Yager, Daily Telegraph Praise for Stephen Booth: 'The complex relationship between [Cooper and Fry] is excellently drawn, and is combined with an intriguing plot and a real sense of place: Stephen Booth is an author to keep an eye on.' T J Binyon, Evening Standard '...Stephen Booth makes high summer in Derbyshire as dark and terrifying as midwinter.' Val McDermid 'Black Dog sinks its teeth into you and doesn't let go ... A dark star may be born!' Reginald Hill 'A leading light of British crime writing.' Maxim Jakubowski, Guardian 'Best traditional crime novel of the year.' Independent, Books of the Year

Who's been sleeping in her bed? Ray Proctor's wife Carol got around. When she's found brutally stabbed to death in Mansell Quinn's house, it's assumed he killed his lover. His wife, Rebecca, and their kids, Andrea and Simon, change their name to Lowe and move out; his drinking buddies, Will Thorpe and the cuckolded Ray, fail to support his alibi. After confessing, Quinn goes off to Sudbury Prison until his release 13 years later, when the Derbyshire CID-DS Diane Fry in charge, with the grunt work done by DC Ben Cooper (Dancing with the Virgins, 2001, etc.), whose late father first arrested Quinn-warn interested parties that he may come gunning for them. Soon enough, Rebecca Lowe dies; Simon is bashed; Thorpe comes to an ignominious end; and a crossbow goes missing from Proctor's lock box at his caravan park. Further, there are myths-maybe more than myths-about cadavers surfacing in the bends of the Peak Caverns. Cooper wrestles with his father's heroic reputation while two other sons of disputed parentage antagonize their dads and Fry grapples with her own familial problems, including a sister recovering from heroin addiction. A rapprochement, a near-escape and a final interrogation of a son close Cooper and Fry's fifth case. Elizabeth George fans will queue up for this one. It's suitably wordy; its continuing characters have uneasy relationships and secretive pasts; and it raises melodrama to middlebrow art. (Kirkus Reviews)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 487 pages
• Publisher: Harper Collins Pb (July 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007172028
• ISBN-13: 978-0007172023
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,462,131 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Stephen Booth is an award winning British crime writer, the creator of two young Derbyshire police detectives, DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry, who have appeared in eleven novels set in England's beautiful and atmospheric Peak District. Stephen has been a Gold Dagger finalist, an Anthony Award nominee, twice winner of a Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel, and twice shortlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year. DC Cooper was a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the best detective created by a British author, and in 2003 the Crime Writers' Association presented Stephen with the Dagger in the Library Award for "the author whose books have given readers the most pleasure". The Cooper & Fry series is published all around the world, and has been translated into 15 languages. The latest title is THE DEVIL'S EDGE.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than his last one, May 10, 2006

By 

Thomas Downs (Brisbane, Queensland Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: One Last Breath (Paperback)

This is certainly an improvement on Stephen Booth's last effort, which was terribly disorganised and contained lots of extraneous material. This story follows a more direct path and unnecessary material is much reduced, although I felt I learnt rather more about the Castleton caves than I needed. The book is certainly very readable, but a major problem for me is that the motives for the two murders that are central to the story are given little explanation and, as a consequence, appear rather flimsy.
The book has been poorly proof-read and, in addition, has a glaring error concerning the time of occurrence of an incident early in the story.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Psychological Thriller, September 10, 2007

By 

J. Chippindale (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Last Breath (Mass Market Paperback)

A newspaper and magazine journalist for over 25 years, Stephen Booth was born in the English Pennine town of Burnley. He was brought up on the coast at Blackpool, where he began his career in journalism by editing his school magazine and wrote his first 'novel' at the age of 13.

Stephen gave up journalism in 2001 to write crime novels full time. He and his wife Lesley live in a former Georgian dower house near Retford, Nottinghamshire, in Robin Hood country.

The Peak District has always been a major attraction for tourists, but this particular summer a convicted killer with one thing on his mind, revenge. Fourteen long years ago Mansell Quinn was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his lover.

Now he is out of prison, under licence. The problem is nobody knows where he is and his ex-wife has been murdered. As they try to get a picture of where Quinn might be and what his next move will be detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry become increasingly frustrated and puzzled by the case. There are too many anomalies to the case, not least the fact that two of his friends refused to back up his alibi and for the last ten years of his sentence, not a soul visited him in jail There is a lot more to this case than meets the eye, but at the moment the pair are getting nowhere.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Compelling Thriller, August 31, 2006

By 

A. Christie "bibliofiend508" (Plano, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Last Breath (Hardcover)

Mansell Quinn is released is released from prison fourteen years after having been convicted of killing his lover. His lover was killed in his house while his wife was at work. His memory is foggy; vague images of blood and his lover's last breath crowd his mind. He felt his must have done it, but while in the middle of his sentence he started to proclaim his innocence. The fact that all of a sudden he was denying his crime made the parole board decide to have him serve his full sentence. Now that he is out, his wife is found dead. Detective Sergent Diane Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper investigate a case that is deeply entangled in the past.

My favorite Brit Crime Fic author is Peter Robinson. Stephen Booth has a bit of a way to go before I would consider him the same caliber, but he's got the elements to be a very fine storyteller: atmospheric setting, multidimensional characters and an well-developed, suspenseful plot. Where he falters a bit is when plot points don't get resolved or they are resolved, but don't make much sense. I still don't understand why Rebecca was killed, and more importantly, I am unclear on who killed her. Maybe I missed it, but a reader should really be able to miss the resolution of a major story line. The plot should be more concise and not meander loosing part of the audience. I did like the story, and I was engaged during reading it. I don't think my mind wandered once, so I was a little perturbed when I still had questions at the end.

I did really love how the Peak District was brought to life in the novel. An ancient underground cave became almost another character in the book. I did get a good sense of Derbyshire as a setting. It was not just a matter of saying a story is set in a location, and that is that.

While I did have a few issues with the story, I did enjoy it and do recommend reading it.

3 1/2 Stars