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Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry return in Stephen Booth's ONE LAST BREATH, number five in the popular series featuring the two Derbyshire police detectives. With its tunnels, caverns, and thronging tourists, the ancient cave system in Derbyshire is the perfect place for a man to hide – or vanish. Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry are looking for such a man, one who is on a rampage of revenge. After 13 years in prison, Mansell Quinn has emerged enraged. Hours after violating his parole, Quinn is the suspect in a fresh murder. And his original sin – the killing of his lover – still haunts the valley. Because Quinn has always maintained his innocence, the people who lined up against him then are in dire danger now. Ben may be one of those people, for his own father arrested Quinn the first time. But Ben wonders if the man was indeed guilty – and makes himself an open target for a killer. If ever there were a cut-and-dried case, the murder of Carol Proctor should've been it. Mansell Quinn, her lover, was found at the scene, covered in Carol's blood, his fingerprints on the knife, and he confesses. But Ben Cooper can't quite convince himself – or DS Fry – that the evidence supports Quinn's conviction, especially given Quinn's subsequent recanting of his confession and his insistence that he is innocent. Cooper and Fry are once again at odds as they work to solve a murder and track down a fugitive who manages to stay one step ahead of them. There is a visible but complicated chemistry between these two that Booth mixes like a mad scientist. He throws in Cooper's love of the job, his sense of duty to both his work and his family, and Fry's ambition, tempered by a bit of personal insecurity, just to make things interesting. Both emerged from the onset in BLACK DOG, the first in the series, as strong, dynamic characters, and ONE LAST BREATH sees them continue in that vein. Their relationship, both personal and working, is complexity writ real and acts as the glue that pieces together Booth's intricate puzzle of clues, witnesses and suspects. Stephen Booth has the marvelous ability to weave a tangled mystery and leave just enough hanging to tantalize to the very end, though there is a sense of uncertainty that permeates this book as to whether there will ever be a satisfactory resolution to the case. Cut-and-dried as it may seem on the surface, the story takes an unexpected turn, and we're left wondering whether the outcome is the truth or a lie carefully constructed to resemble it. In either case, the end result is another of Booth's brilliant efforts, and I'm anxious to see where life and death will take Cooper and Fry next.
Reviewed by J. B. Thompson, June 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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