Stephen Booth, One Last Breath (2004)

This British police procedural is the fifth in the series about Cooper and Fry.

Somewhere at home I have some hand-written notes about the plot, but that is home and this is our cottage where we are spending the weekend. I have always enjoyed this series very much for the rural setting and Ben Cooper, the quiet country copper. City-cool Diane Fry is a different kettle of fish, but at least we begin to get some idea why she seems to be so cold and inhuman. In this story her sister Angie appears out of the blue and assures Diane that she has put her drug addiction behind her. Diane wants to believe her, but via her job she knows how unreliable addicts can be.

It was the wrong choice for last week, however, because I had a terrible cold and found it very challenging just to hold the heavy book (a hardback with nearly five hundred pages) in my shaky hand. So it took some time to get into the plot and find out who the many characters were, and what with my notes having scarpered, I won´t try to explain what it is all about. This quotation from FantasticFiction should give you the idea:

Mingling with the holiday makers is a convicted killer, bent on revenge. Fourteen years ago Mansell Quinn was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his lover. Now he's out under licence, whereabouts unknown, and his ex-wife has been murdered.

If you like British police procedurals with a strong sense of place, this series should be something for your. I bought the book myself.