Coroner Jenny Cooper

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.

Meet Coroner Jenny Cooper, a fearless yet human heroine and the last hope for the unjustly killed. “The Coroner” is the first gripping installment in Matthew Hall's “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.

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.

“The Flight” is the fourth thrilling installment in Matthew Hall's gripping “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 Chosen Dead is the fifth gripping installment in Matthew Hall's twice CWA Gold Dagger nominated Coroner Jenny Cooper series, from the creator of BBC One's Keeping Faith. An unlikely suicide or a deadly conspiracy? When Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper investigates the fatal plunge of a man from a motorway bridge, she little suspects that it has any connection with the sudden death of a friend's thirteen year old daughter from a deadly strain of meningitis. But as Jenny pieces together the dead man's last days, she's drawn into a mystery whose dark ripples stretch across continents and back through decades. In an investigation which will take her into the sinister realms of unbridled human ambition and corrupt scientific endeavour, Jenny is soon forced to risk the love and lives of those closest to her, as a deadly race to uncover the truth begins . . . The Chosen Dead is followed by the sixth novel in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series, The Burning. 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. Another mysterious investigation by Coroner Jenny Cooper, a fearless yet human heroine and the last hope for the unjustly killed. 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. 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.

The Burning is the sixth thrilling installment in Matthew Hall's twice CWA Gold Dagger nominated Coroner Jenny Cooper series, from the creator of BBC One's Keeping Faith. A family tragedy. A buried secret. What lies hidden in the flames? A dense, bitterly cold fog has settled over the Wye Valley when Bristol Coroner Jenny Cooper is called to the scene of a dreadful tragedy: in the village of Blackstone Ley, a house has burned to the ground with three members of a family inside. Though evidence of foul play is quickly uncovered, it isn't long before the police investigation is drawn to a close. It seems certain that the fire was started by one of the victims, Ed Morgan, in a fit of jealous rage. But their infant son is still missing, and Ed had left a message for his surviving wife, Kelly Hart, telling her that she would never find the child... As Jenny prepares the inquest, she finds herself troubled by the official version of events. What could have provoked Ed's murderous rampage? How might the other, guarded inhabitants of the village have been involved? And what could the connection be with the mysterious abduction of a little girl ten years ago? Battling to suppress grueling events in her own life, Jenny soon becomes entangled in another perplexing inquiry that may have surprising links to this one. Can she unearth Blackstone Ley's secrets, before it's too late? The Burning is followed by the seventh book in the Coroner Jenny Cooper series, A Life to Kill.