Flight

The Flight is the fourth thrilling installment in Matthew Hall's gripping, CWA Gold Dagger shortlisted Coroner Jenny Cooper series, from the creator of BBC One's Keeping Faith.A tragic accident or a terrible crime? When Flight 189 plunges into the Severn Estuary, Coroner Jenny Cooper finds herself handling the case of a lone sailor whose boat appears to have been sunk by the stricken plane, and drawn into the mysterious fate of a ten year-old girl, Amy Patterson, a passenger on 189, whose largely unmarked body is washed up alongside his. While a massive and highly secretive operation is launched to recover clues from the wreckage, Jenny begins to ask questions the official investigation doesn’t want answered. How could such a high tech plane – virtually impregnable against human error – fail? What linked the high powered passengers who found themselves on this ill-fated flight? And how did Amy Patterson survive the crash, only to perish hours later? Under pressure from Amy’s grieving mother, and opposed by those at the very highest levels of government, Jenny must race against time to seek the truth behind this terrible disaster, before it can happen again . . .The Flight is followed by the fifth book in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series, The Chosen Dead.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.

'Crime-Busting Cracker' Woman & Home, 'Fasten your seatbelts for a quality thriller...Matthew Hall's first-rate books about unorthodox Bristol coroner Jenny Cooper. The Flight is Cooper's fourth outing and Hall's Gold Dagger-nominated books, quite simply, get better each time. Part of it is the former barrister and TV producer's ability to structure and deliver a thriller that has you keep turning the pages. I read The Flight, as its predecessors, at one sitting. But Hall is also a hit upon a genuinely fascinating aspect of the justice system...The most compelling element of Hall's books, however, is Cooper herself: difficult, damaged, self-destructive, struggling to recover from a divorce . . . It is wonderful stuff, chillingly plausible, but properly best not read on a long haul flight' Independent on Sunday, ‘Ed McBain semi-inaugurated the forensics genre, but Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs parleyed his innovations into stratospheric sales. But the field has not become an exclusively female sorority – or an American domain. A highly talented male writer has offered a challenge, albeit one who plays safe by using a woman protagonist. The Coroner (2009) by M R Hall was an instant hit. His heroine Jenny Cooper, a divorcée who has had a nervous breakdown, struggled with a new job as coroner for the Severn Vale . . . It would appear that Hall has decided to broaden his canvas with this latest outing for his protagonist, still dependent on prescription drugs. She is coming to terms with the breakdown that we read about in The Coroner, but still fragile. Here, she is up against her most dangerously influential opponents . . . It looks like Jenny Cooper – and her creator – are here for the long haul: good news for readers’ Independent , ‘An edge-of-the-seat thriller . . . this fourth novel in the excellent Jenny Cooper series should come with a health warning’ Irish Independent, ‘When The Coroner, the first in the Jenny Cooper series, burst upon the crime fiction scene it made a considerable impact. It was clear that the author had created something new and exciting in the field. Not every male writer is able to create such richly faceted, convincing female characters as Jenny. She established herself in the army of female forensic specialists and she needed to, this really is an overcrowded field. We have followed this vulnerable heroine through three novels and enjoyed her triumphs in the teeth of daunting odds. To some degree, that’s the scenario here but larger issues are also at stake. Hall is too canny a writer not to realise that the real focus of his books should remain on the personal. And it is the pressure put on Jenny by the dead girl’s mother that makes her take risks against powerful forces. It’s a cliche´ to say that the key to the mystery lies in the higher echelons of government. And even though Hall moves into that familiar territory, he rings the changes with real skill. This fourth book in the Jenny Cooper series is quite as involving as its predecessors’ Daily Express

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.