Dark, intense and utterly compelling, `Black Dog' was an extraordinary first novel from a writer who has rapidly become the most promising crime author to emerge in the genre in years.

`Where Cooper stood was remote and isolated... but the smell that lingered under the trees was of blood'

The long hot Peak District summer came to an end when they found Laura Vernon's body. But for local policeman Ben Cooper the work has just begun. His community is hiding a young girl's killer and a past as dark as the Derbyshire night. It seems Laura was the keeper of secrets beyond her years and, in a case where no-one is innocent, everyone is a suspect.

But Cooper's local knowledge and instincts are about to face an even greater challenge. The ambitious DC Diane Fry has been called in from another division, a woman as ruthless as she is attractive...