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Contact M R Hall
Novels by M R Hall
Published in the UK by Pan Macmillan and Mantle
The Coroner is the debut novel of author M R Hall and was first published in the UK in 2009 by Pan Macmillan. In its first few months The Coroner was translated into over seven languages.
An adaptation for British television is currently underway.
I’m a Coroner. I spend my life laying things to rest . . .
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 Disappeared is the second novel in the Jenny Cooper series and was first published in the UK
on 1 January 2010 by Pan Macmillan.
Two young British students, Nazim Jamal and Rafi Hassan vanish without a trace.
The police tell their parents that the boys had been under surveillance, that it was likely they left the country to pursue their dangerous new ideals. Seven years later, Nazim’s grief-stricken mother is still unconvinced. Jenny Cooper is her last hope.
Jenny is finally beginning to settle into her role as Coroner for the Severn Vale; the ghosts of her past that threatened to topple her, banished to the sidelines once more. But as the inquest into Nazim's disappearance gets underway, the stink of corruption and conspiracy intensifies. . .
As the pressure from above increases, a code of silence is imposed on the inquest and events begin to spiral out of all control, pushing Jenny to 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?
New for the mass market paperback, a stunning new cover design for The Redeemed. The Redeemed is the third thrilling installment in the Jenny Cooper series, published in the UK on 1 April 2011.
M R Hall is privileged to be published in hardcover under Macmillan’s exclusive new imprint, Mantle.
“Dad, what happened to Cousin Katy?”
“You remember, Smiler. You killed her.”
Coroner Jenny Cooper doesn’t just have an accusation of murder hanging over her head…
The discovery of a dead man lying outside a Bristol church with a sign of the cross gouged into his flesh looks to her like another grisly, routine suicide. But the unexpected arrival of an enigmatic Jesuit priest reveals deeper levels of mystery.
Father Lucas Starr is protesting the innocence of a convicted prisoner who made a doubtful confession to the murder of Eva Donaldson, a former adult-movie actress turned world-renowned anti-pornography campaigner. Persuaded by him to look at Eva’s death afresh, Jenny uncovers a sinister series of connections between her killing and the body at the church.
As her investigation links to yet another tragic death, Jenny’s suspicions turn towards 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.
The Flight is the fourth book in the Jenny Cooper series
Published on 2 February 2012
‘Ransome Airways Flight 189 to New York was one of seven-hundred and fifty-three scheduled to depart London’s Heathrow that Sunday in early January. During peak times at the world’s busiest international airport, one plane would take-off and another land every minute. There was little room for error either human or mechanical, still less in the uncertain realm where the two connected.’
When an Airbus A380, the world’s most sophisticated fly-by-wire airliner crashes into the Severn Estuary with the loss of all 600 on board, it’s not just a human tragedy, it’s a threat to the whole of commercial aviation.
A major official investigation is launched into the disaster and tightly controlled by the full machinery of the State. But a little upstream, the bodies of two passengers wash up in the territory of fiercely independent coroner, Jenny Cooper. She comes under pressure to give up jurisdiction, but refusing to bend, persists in her investigation and starts to make connections which lead to dark and sinister conclusions. Among the passengers on board were a young female pilot with an obsession with air accidents, a leading Chinese entrepreneur, a dealer in sophisticated armaments and a brilliant young scientist. Something seems to link them all, and connect them to the tragedy.
With the help of an emotionally scarred ex-military pilot, Michael Sherman, Jenny flies in the face of official resistance, risking her career and personally safety to delve deep into the airline industry, uncovering a disturbing series of unexplained incidents on the world’s most technically complex aircraft. Far from being infallible, she discovers, the most modern planes in the sky are deeply vulnerable. And then in a shocking denouement, the tragedy threatens to repeat itself …
Buy a signed first edition copy of The Flight