Blood on the Tongue: A Crime Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "It was an hour before dawn when Detective Constable Ben Cooper first began to get the news..." (more)
Key Phrases: white fivers, aircraft wrecks, waxed coat, Ben Cooper, Diane Fry, Alison Morrissey (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The weather is cold and the clues no warmer as Peak District detectives Ben Cooper and Diane Fry tackle a medley of mysteries--each one knottier than the last--in English author Stephen Booth's haunting third novel, Blood on the Tongue. The unidentified body of a dead man has turned up on a frosty roadside. An abused woman is found curled in the snow on nearby Irontongue Hill, an apparent suicide. And there's the lingering puzzle of a Royal Air Force bomber that crashed into Irontongue back in 1945, killing everyone on board except for the pilot, who reportedly walked away from the wreckage... and was never heard from again. With leave and sickness decimating the ranks of the Edendale police force, all hands are needed to solve the modern deaths. But constable Cooper finds himself distracted by the World War II tragedy, in large part because of a beguiling young Canadian, the granddaughter of that missing pilot, who's come to Edendale determined to clear her ancestor's name.

Not surprisingly, these various cases eventually intertwine. But how they're linked by time and tragedy provides the intrigue here. Equally involving is the prickly alliance between Cooper, the "too bloody nice" local lad, and his superior, the emotionally guarded outsider, Fry. Plotted for maximum psychological suspense, teeming with singular secondary characters, and capitalizing on Britain's still-poignant memories of the last world war, Blood on the Tongue is an ambitious and remarkably mature work that delivers on the promise Booth showed in his first novel, Black Dog. --J. Kingston Pierce

From Publishers Weekly

The overworked police of Edendale (England) face their greatest challenge yet in Booth's outstanding third mystery (after 2001's Dancing with the Virgins). Det. Constable Ben Cooper, young, dedicated, diffident and thoroughly unorthodox, and his supervisor, Det. Sergeant Diane Fry, efficient, ambitious, aggressive and businesslike, are nearly overwhelmed when confronted by a vicious beating of two men that may have been fueled by racial hatreds, an unidentified corpse uncovered by a snowplow, and another corpse found frozen in the hills of the Peak District. A missing infant and a Canadian woman investigating what happened to her grandfather after his Lancaster bomber crashed 57 years before further complicate the absorbing, complex plot. The author examines the Polish community of Edendale, probing its insularity, its customs, passions and pride, and his country characters, like George Malkin of remote Hollow Shaw Farm, leave vivid, lasting impressions. Best of all are the interrelationships, particularly the wonderful tension that thrums the air between Fry and Cooper as respect and admiration war with suspicion and distrust to produce an almost erotic attraction. The early promise of Booth's debut novel, Black Dog, is fully realized here, and new readers should scurry to find his earlier books.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 387 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743236181
• ISBN-13: 978-0743236188
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,291,889 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 3 in The Constable Ben Cooper Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BLOOD ON THE TONGUE, October 24, 2002

By	Susan Hartigan (Riverside, California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE is another fantastic novel from Stephen Booth. Not only another fantastic novel, but one with old friends, and even some new ones. Reading BLOOD ON THE TONGUE felt like coming home again.

It is in the middle of the coldest part of the year in the Peak District. The time of the year for cold, frozen feet and red, burning ears. When snow flurries blow hard, and the snow banks along the roads grow so high that they hide all kinds of secrets. Perhaps even a dead body, or two.

Ben Cooper and Diane Fry find themselves together again, at the Edendale Police Department in the midst of a crime wave. Young men are beating each other, people are being found frozen in the snow, and there is a terrible shortage of help. To make life just that much more unbearable at the moment, Diane has a new nemesis, DC Gavin Murfin. A completely, in Diane's mind anyway, uncivilized brute who drives her nuts with both his disgusting eating habits, as well as just him simply breathing. Everything about Gavin disgusts Diane.

To top everything off E Division is getting a new Detective Chief Inspector. Stewart Tailby is retiring to a desk job at headquarters, and DCI Oliver Kessen is taking over.

In the middle of this chaos a young woman arrives from Canada in search of information concerning her grandfather, Daniel McTeague. The problem with this is that Pilot Officer McTeague has been missing since his RAF plane went down 57 years earlier in the peat moors around Irontongue Hill. It was reported at the time that Officer McTeague had survived the accident, and had left the wreckage, walking away from his military career and past life, never to be seen, or heard from again. His granddaughter, Alison Morrissey does not believe this, and is insistent that the police open the old case again and investigate.

Because of political pressure, the Chief Superintendent agrees to speak to Morrissy concerning her grandfather, but doesn't really have his heart in the whole thing. After all the disappearance was 57 years ago, and all of the evidence surrounding it seems pretty sound.

But Ben cannot, and will not let it alone. He has to find out what happened almost 60 years ago.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE, like the previous books by Mr. Booth, is full of atmosphere and personal relationships. He does this in such a way that you actually feel that you are in the story. The way Mr. Booth describes the Peak District landscape, and the people of
Edendale draw you into the story.

You feel the cold wind against your face, burning your ears, and making it difficult to breath. As you look up at Irontongue Hill you will see it is, "tongue shaped with ridges and furrows. Reptilian, not human, with a curl at the tip. Colder and harder than iron. Darker rock laying on broken teeth of volcano rock debris." And 'you will' see it. All of this you will see and feel, along with people who you cannot forget, their lives entwined and yet separate. Mr. Booth brings both the land and the people together into a story that is completely unforgettable. One that will haunt you and make you want for more. And when you finally get that next story, Mr. Booth does it again, leaving you satisfied, and yet already yearning for more.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE weaves the past and the present into one. Brings the story full circle. Every character and scene is woven so tightly that you cannot separate them, and yet they remain individual. The characters are everyday characters with lives, feelings, and personalities of their own that you actually can feel and touch. The scenes are so real that they will haunt your dreams at night. The mood, while dark, is absolutely balanced with enough humor and light that it doesn't depress you, but instead keeps you turning those pages to learn more.

BLOOD ON THE TONGUE is an absolute winner, and Mr. Booth has proven himself again as a literary giant. All I can say is that BLOOD ON THE TONGUE will leave you craving for more from this outstanding author.

As with Mr. Booth's previous books, Black Dog, and Dancing with the Virgins, BLOOD ON THE TONGUE is a book that you will want to read slowly, because you want to savor each and every word. It is a book you will not want to rush through. I took my time, knowing that when I turned that last page I would want the next episode and didn't want to have to wait for a long time. Now that I have turned that last page, I am looking forward to the next book out of Mr. Booth, knowing that he again will outdo himself, just as he has with BLOOD ON THE TONGUE. Until then my dreams will be full of the sights, the sounds, and the smells of the Peak District and the people who inhabit it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprising, February 20, 2003

By	bill runyon (Indiana) - See all my reviews

The surprising thing about this author is that he isn't recognized more widely.
His writing is absolutely first-class, and his use of the
English language surpasses almost any other writing most us
encounter. In this narrow field of the "psychological thriller," his command of the language, and his fresh use of
the metaphor and simile, is unparalleled.
A serious reader will have to re-read some of his passages just
for the pleasure of how the mental picture developes as the
words are flowing.
In this outing, his "heros," Ben and Diane, remain at personal
odds, and they have a difficult time working together on their
rural Derbyshire Constabulary, but a series of crimes brings
them together again to work their particular magic on violent
felons.
A couple of dead bodies are found, apparently unrelated, but
investigation leads back to a WWII crash of a British bomber
in the rural mountains, and an amazing series of crimes begins
to unfold as evidence points to an ever-widening story of crime,
deception at multiple levels, and family relationships. The
details presented and analyzed will hold the reader's attention
throughout the book.
This author also has an unusual insight into how crime victims
react to the assaults on them, and some readers will almost
shrink from absorbing the details of that process.
This story is one that should not be missed by anyone reading
in the "crime" or "thriller" field, and we also learn a lot
about life in the rural England of today.
Rush to grab this one.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent entry in a series, October 10, 2002

By	woodstock_ap "woodstock_ap" (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Ben Cooper and Diane Fry, colleages in a rural British police department, return in the third entry in a continuing series of police procedurals. They share a rather prickly relationship which often interferes with their efforts to work together productively. A series of seemingly unconnected murders has occurred, people disappear, a young woman arrives from Canada to search for information on her grandfather who died as as RAF aviator in WWII, a local tightly Polish community hides secrets of its own, an eccentric book store owner may be involved in illegal activity (or not), one or perhaps two missing infants, and the plight of several elderly residents of the area is portrayed with sensitivity.

Gradually it becomes clear that all events center around a rocky area where WWII aircraft crashed over 60 years ago. Very tightly plotted, and thoroughly enjoyable!