Books in Jenny Cooper series

In the bestselling tradition of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta, M. R. Hall's heroine Jenny Cooper makes her debut as a coroner with a detective's eye and a woman with a home life as complicated as her cases. In this brilliant debut, Jenny investigates the disappearance of two young Muslim students, who vanished without a trace seven years ago. The police had concluded that the boys, under surveillance for some time for suspicion of terrorism, had fled to Pakistan to traffic in the atrocities of Islamic fanaticism. Now, sufficient time has passed for the law to declare the boys legally dead. A final declaration is left up to a coroner, Jenny Cooper. As Jenny's official inquest progresses, the stench of corruption is unmistakable. Not only does it appear that British Security Services played a role, but the involvement of an American intelligence agent soon makes it clear that a vast conspiracy is in play. As Jenny builds an ever-strengthening case implicating a shocking collection of power and influence, she meets with a determined and increasingly menacing resistance. When she links the students' "vanishing" to the unidentified corpse of a beautiful young woman and the fate of a missing nuclear scientist, Jenny is forced into an arena in which she is pushed to the breaking point and beyond. She must struggle with her own inner demons while fighting a lone and desperate battle to bring an unspeakable crime to justice.

A MOTHER’S ONLY CHILD. A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY. A SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH THAT COULD COST JENNY COOPER HER JOB—AND MAYBE HER LIFE.SEVERN VALE DISTRICT CORONER JENNY COOPER signed up for the job imagining a quiet life in the English countryside—a chance to repair her relationship with her college-age son and to conquer a frightening addiction to pills that emerged in the wake of her painful divorce. But then Amira Jamal shows up at her office demanding an inquest. Seven years ago, Jamal’s son vanished along with his friend, and the boys, both Muslim university students, have now been officially declared dead. As Jenny begins to investigate their disappearance, she discovers a deepening mystery that appears to involve not only British Security Services but also a shady American agent, an unidentified body, and a missing nuclear scientist. In the face of determined resistance from an Establishment that would prefer the grim truth remain buried, Jenny must fight to control her own inner demons and to bring unspeakable crimes to justice.

“DAD, WHAT HAPPENED TO COUSIN KATY?” “YOU REMEMBER, SMILER. YOU KILLED HER.” JENNY COOPER has a lot on her mind. Under fire from her superiors for exposing a high-level government cover-up of the disappearance of two Muslim youths, she is also haunted by the discovery that she may have been responsible for the death of one of her own family members. Her college-age son, her therapist, and her neighbor and sometimes lover all seem to be turning their backs on her, driving Jenny to increasingly give in to the temptation to escape through alcohol and pills. The discovery of a dead man lying outside a Bristol church with the sign of the cross gouged into his flesh looks to her at first like another grisly suicide. But the unexpected arrival of an enigmatic Jesuit priest reveals deeper levels of mystery. Father Lucas Starr, the chaplain of a nearby prison, has come to plead for Jenny’s intercession on behalf of one of his parishioners, who confessed to murdering Eva Donaldson, a former adult movie actress turned world-renowned anti-pornography campaigner. Persuaded by him to look at Eva’s death afresh, Jenny un-covers a sinister series of connections between Eva and the body at the church. After another tragic death, Jenny’s suspicions turn toward a powerful new global phenomenon: the politically ambitious and intoxicatingly charismatic Mission Church of God. Answering to no one but the dead, Jenny’s lone quest for justice takes her to the heart of the fight between good and evil, sex and the supernatural, and on a dark inner journey to confront ghosts that have haunted her for a lifetime.

Two young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan, vanish without a trace. The police write them off as runaways, but seven years later, Nazim's grief stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is finally settling into her role as Coroner for the Severn Valley; the ghosts of her past banished to the sidelines once more. But as an inquest into Nazim's disappearance gets underway, the stink of corruption and conspiracy becomes clear. As the pressure from above increases, a code of silence is imposed and events begin to spiral out of control, pushing Jenny to the breaking point. For how could she have known that by unravelling the mysteries of the disappeared, she would begin to unearth her own buried secrets?

A man's body is discovered in a church yard, the sign of the cross carved into his abdomen. Later he is found to be Alan Jacobs, a troubled psychiatric nurse. It seems to Jenny Cooper, Severn Vale District Coroner, this is likely to be an open and shut suicide case, but something tells her to probe a little deeper. After another tragic death, Jenny's suspicions turn toward a powerful new global phenomenon: the politically ambitious and intoxicatingly charismatic Mission Church of God. Meanwhile Jenny must finally confront the demons of her past, and as her private life threatens to shatter, she faces intense pressure from all angles to cease her investigations. But to Jenny Cooper, whose whole life has been governed by deception, the truth is everything.