Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Matthew (formerly M. R.) Hall is a screenwriter and producer and former criminal barrister, a profession he left due to a constitutional inability to prosecute. Educated at Hereford Cathedral School and Worcester College, Oxford, he lives in the Wye Valley in Monmouthshire with his wife, journalist Patricia Carswell, and two sons. Aside from writing, his main passion is the preservation and planting of woodland. In his spare moments, he is mostly to be found amongst trees. His books in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series include The Coroner, The Disappeared, The Redeemed, The Flight, The Chosen Dead, The Burning and A Life to Kill.It's a tribute to the author's skill that I read this book supposing it to be autobiographical . . . He really gets under the skin of his heroine . . . Good and imaginative writing (and some political implications) to make an outstandingly interesting first novel
The Literary Review
A compelling debut
Sainsburys Magazine
This big, well-executed debut novel by screenwriter and producer Matthew Hall has meaty characters and a chewy plot in the Lynda La Plante style
Guardian
A brilliant, original and gripping crime novel – I can't wait for Matthew Hall's next one!
- Sophie Hannah,
Unputdownable debut introducing a fantastic, feisty and convincingly flawed heroine
Woman & Home
Congratulations to new crime fiction author Matthew Hall . . . A refreshing take on a historic office . . . Convincing and compelling
Daily Mail
A fast paced debut thriller
The Times
There’s much to like here, including the unusual viewpoint, the strong narrative, and the solidly researched background
Spectator
A gripping debut novel
Daily Express
Hall’s heroine is believable enough to care about, and it’s good to see a novel niche being carved in the crowded realm of whodunits. Perhaps it’ll do for coroners’ courts what CSI did for forensic science
Observer
The Coroner is the first gripping installment in Matthew Hall's twice CWA Gold Dagger nominated Coroner Jenny Cooper series, from the creator of BBC One's Keeping Faith.
When those in power hide the truth, she risks everything to reveal it.
When lawyer, Jenny Cooper, is appointed Severn Vale District Coroner, she’s hoping for a quiet life and space to recover from a traumatic divorce, but the office she inherits from the recently deceased Harry Marshall contains neglected files hiding dark secrets and a trail of buried evidence.
Could the tragic death in custody of a young boy be linked to the apparent suicide of a teenage prostitute and the fate of Marshall himself? Jenny’s curiosity is aroused. Why was Marshall behaving so strangely before he died? What injustice was he planning to uncover? And what caused his abrupt change of heart?
In the face of powerful and sinister forces determined to keep both the truth hidden and the troublesome coroner in check, Jenny embarks on a lonely and dangerous one-woman crusade for justice which threatens not only her career but also her sanity.
The Coroner is followed by the second book in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series, The Disappeared.
The Jenny Cooper novels have been adapted into a hit TV series, Coroner, made for CBC and NBC Universal starring Serinda Swan and Roger Cross.
Who will speak for the dead? There is only one woman brave enough.
Newly divorced and separated from her only child, Jenny Cooper trades her job as a hard-pressed family lawyer for the position of Severn Vale Coroner, hoping to rebuild her shattered life.
But peace is the last thing she finds. Her very first case in the first book in the series, The Coroner, is that of a young teenage boy found hanged in a privately run prison. Jenny’s fight for justice pits her against the full might of a legal and political Establishment determined not to let the truth get in the way of business. A tough, yet often vulnerable force of nature determined to give voice to the voiceless, Jenny risks her safety and her sanity to bring the darkest secrets into the light.
Jenny’s investigations take her into the worlds of terrorism, religious cults, international aviation and to the battlefields of Afghanistan. A fearless yet human heroine in the mould of Erin Brokovitch, Jenny is the last hope for the unjustly killed and those left behind.
The Coroner Jenny Cooper series by Matthew Hall has been adapted into a hit TV series, Coroner, made for CBC and NBC Universal starring Serinda Swan and Roger Cross.