Dancing with the Virgins

The second in the series set in the Derbyshire Peak District, Dancing with the Virgins is a tense psychological follow-up to Stephen Booth’s acclaimed debut Black Dog.

‘The body of the woman sprawled obscenely among the stones… She looked like a dead woman, dancing.’

The ring of cairns known as the Nine Virgins has stood on the windswept moors of Derbyshire for centuries. Now, as winter closes in, a tenth figure is added – a body – and a modern tragedy is added to the dark legend that surrounds the stones.

There’s no shortage of suspects, each with their own guilty secret, but what DS Fry and DC Cooper lack is any kind of motive. As they search separately for answers, it seems the reasons for the strange behaviour of the moor’s inhabitants may lie somewhere in the past, in a terrible crime yet to be discovered…

Reviews

‘Another first-rate mystery … Booth is particularly good at creating credible characters’ Sunday Telegraph

‘Includes several sinuous turns and surprises’ Scotsman

‘On this form, Booth could soon be up there with the likes of Reginald Hill. If you read only one new crime writer this year, he’s your man’ Yorkshire Post

About the author

Stephen Booth is a journalist. Stephen Booth was born in the Lancashire mill town of Burnley and has remained rooted to the Pennines during his career as a newspaper journalist. He lives with his wife Lesley in a former Georgian dower house in Nottinghamshire and his interests include folklore, the Internet and walking in the hills of the Peak District. ‘Dancing with the Virgins’ is his second novel.