A
newspaper and magazine journalist for over 25 years, Stephen Booth was born in
the English Pennine mill town of Burnley. He was brought up on the
Lancashire
coast at Blackpool, where he attended Arnold
School. He began his career in journalism by editing his school magazine,
and wrote his first novel at the age of 12.
After
graduating from
City
of
Birmingham Polytechnic
(now
Birmingham
City University), Stephen moved to Manchester to train as a
teacher, but escaped from the profession after a terrifying spell as a trainee
teacher in a big city comprehensive
school.
Starting
work on his first newspaper in Wilmslow, Cheshire, in 1974, Stephen was a specialist rugby
union reporter, as well as working night shifts as a sub-editor on the Daily
Express and The Guardian. This was followed by periods with local newspapers in
Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. He was at various times Production
Editor of the Farming Guardian
magazine, Regional Secretary of the British Guild of Editors, and one of
the UK's first qualified assessors in Production Journalism.
Freelance
work began with rugby reports for national
newspapers and local radio stations. Stephen
has
also
had articles and photographs
published in
a
wide
range
of
specialist
magazines,
from Scottish Memories
to
Countrylovers
Magazine,
from
Cat World
to
Canal and Riverboat, and
one
short
story broadcast on BBC radio. In 1999, his writing career changed direction
when,
in
rapid
succession,
he
was
shortlisted
for
the Dundee Book Prize and the Crime
Writers'
Association
Debut
Dagger competition
for
new
writers,
then
won
the
£5,000 Lichfield Prize for his
unpublished
novel The
Only Dead Thing,
and
signed
a
two-book
contract
with
HarperCollins
for
a
series
of
crime
novels.
In 2000, Stephen's first published novel, Black Dog, marked the arrival in print of his best known creations - two young Derbyshire police detectives, DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry. Black Dog was the named by the London Evening Standard as one of the six best crime novels of the year - the only book on their list written by a British author. In the USA, it won the Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel and was nominated for an Anthony Award for Best First Mystery. The second Cooper & Fry novel, Dancing with the Virgins, was shortlisted for the UK's top crime writing award, the Gold Dagger, and went on to win Stephen a Barry Award for the second year running.
In 2003, Detective Constable Ben Cooper was a finalist for the Sherlock Award for the Best Detective created by a British author, thanks to his exploits in the third book of the series, Blood on the Tongue. The publication of Blind to the Bones that year resulted in Stephen winning the Crime Writers' Association's 'Dagger in the Library' Award, presented to the author whose books have given readers most pleasure. The same book was nominated for the Theakston's UK Crime Novel of the Year award in 2005. Subsequent titles have been One Last Breath, The Dead Place (both finalists for the UK Crime Novel of the Year in 2006 and 2007), Scared to Live, Dying to Sin, The Kill Call, Lost River, The Devil's Edge, Dead and Buried, Already Dead, The Corpse Bridge, The Murder Road, Secrets of Death, Dead in the Dark, and most recently Fall Down Dead. A special Ben Cooper story, Claws, was released in 2007 to launch the new 'Crime Express' imprint, and was re-issued in April 2011.
All the Cooper & Fry novels are set in England's beautiful and atmospheric Peak District. The Peak District National Park Authority featured locations from the Cooper & Fry series in their new Peak Experience visitors' guides, recognising the interest in the area inspired by the books.
The Cooper & Fry series is now published by Little, Brown in the UK and by the Witness Impulse imprint of HarperCollins in the USA. In addition to publication in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, translation rights in the series have so far been sold in sixteen languages - French, German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Czech, Romanian, Bulgarian, Japanese and Hebrew.
A new standalone novel Drowned Lives was published in August 2019, set in South Staffordshire and with a historical theme.
While
living on a smallholding in Yorkshire, Stephen began breeding pedigree dairy
goats
as
a
hobby
(and
as
an
extreme
contrast
to
working
in
busy
news
rooms!). He later served on the British Goat Society's governing body and judged at shows all over Britain. He has
been chairman of
several clubs, including the charity fund-raising Just Kidding Goat Society, and
probably his most unusual role was as a director of an artificial insemination company. Specialist publications he's been responsible for
include a book on
one of the country's oldest goat breeds, The Toggenburg.
He
is a former President of the Toggenburg Breeders
Society.
Stephen left journalism in 2001 to write novels full time. He and his wife Lesley live in a village in rural Nottinghamshire, England (home of Robin Hood and the Pilgrim Fathers). They have three cats.
In recent years, Stephen Booth has become a Library Champion in support of the UK’s ‘Love Libraries’ campaign, and a Reading Champion to support the National Year of Reading. He has also represented British literature at the Helsinki Book Fair in Finland, filmed a documentary for 20th Century Fox on the French detective Vidocq, taken part in online chats for World Book Day, and given talks at many conferences, conventions, libraries, bookshops and festivals around the world. He is a director of the regional writer development agency Writing East Midlands and teaches crime writing courses in the region, as well as leading workshops for writers' groups, at writing festivals, and in prisons. He is also the author of a standalone crime novel Top Hard, set among the Nottinghamshire pit villages of the 1990s.
August 2019
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