It's been some time since I wrote a review of a debut novel, "Black Dog", a book I enjoyed sufficiently to send me racing hotfoot to amazon to see if author Stephen Booth had penned a follow up. He had. It is called "Dancing with the Virgins" and, to quote Reginald Hill from the front cover, "A dark star may be born".
Like "Black Dog", "Dancing with the Virgins" is set in the Peak District and features police officers Ben Cooper and Diane Fry. It is a stand-alone book rather than a sequel - you do not need to have read "Black Dog" to make sense of Booth's latest offering, although, to be fair, reading both will give you added insight into the two main characters.
The titular "Virgins" are a group of nine standing stones which, legend has it, are the remains of young women who were caught dancing on a Sunday and were turned to stone for desecrating the Sabbath. (Slightly apart stands a tenth stone, The Fiddler, the unfortunate musician accompanying their antics who suffered the same fate.) On an autumn morning, a tenth "virgin" joins the circle, as the body of Jenny Weston is found in their midst. A few weeks earlier, a second woman, Maggie Crew, had been attacked nearby, her face savagely slashed by a mysterious assailant, although fortunately Maggie survived her ordeal. Now Fry, Cooper and their colleagues must find the person preying on women who walk the moor, before he or she claims another victim.
As with "Black Dog", author Booth's character portrayal is superb and, as with "Black Dog", I almost forgot that a murder had been committed and needed to be solved, so engrossed did I become with the individual characters and their dark secrets. Who (and where) was the mysterious Ros Daniels, a dreadlocked young woman who appeared to have been one of the victims few friends? What part did the travellers Cal and Stride who lived in a broken down camper van in a nearby quarry have to play? Did they know more about the murders than they were willing to admit? What were the dreadful secrets tormenting the occupants of Ringham Edge farm, on whose land the virgins danced eternally? Why was farmer Warren Leach so angry? The park rangers, Mark and Owen - were they quite as innocent as they seemed? Booth has created a myriad of sub-plots that cannot fail to intrigue the reader.
As well as character portrayal, Booth excels in scene setting, particularly since "Dancing with the Virgins" is set in the present time. The feeling of familiarity that come from his fleeting references to Big Brother and Who Wants to be a Millionaire help place the reader right in the thick of the action. Booth's powers of description are superb - the parts of the book that deal with rural issues, such as the local cattle market, are absolutely perfectly described. And, more so than "Black Dog", "Dancing with the Virgins" can at times be quite humorous, although it is an everyday sort of humour that will make the reader smile empathetically rather than laugh out loud. (A kind of "been there, done that" sort of humour.)
"Dancing with the Virgins" is an engrossing and gripping read from start to finish. This book has something that many crime novels sadly lack it is believable. As with "Black Dog", the end when it finally comes is a complete surprise - I defy anyone to have second-guessed the author and have the murder solved by mid-book.
I'm not normally a fan of crime novels, preferring the reality of True-Crime, but this dark psychological thriller from Booth has me hooked.
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN:0006514332
Price: £6.99
Date Reviewed: June 2002
My Rating: 5/5
