We consider the reflection of oblique compression waves from a two-dimensional, steady, laminar boundary layer on a flat, adiabatic plate at free-stream pressures such that dense-gas effects are non-negligible. The full Navier–Stokes equations are solved through use of a dense-gas version of the Beam–Warming implicit scheme. The main fluids studied are Bethe–Zel'dovich–Thompson (BZT) fluids. These are ordinary gases which have specific heats large enough to cause the fundamental derivative of gasdynamics to be negative for a range of pressures and temperatures in the single-phase vapour regime. It is demonstrated that the unique dynamics of BZT fluids can result in a suppression of shock-induced separation. Numerical tests performed reveal that the physical mechanism leading to this suppression is directly related to the disintegration of any compression discontinuities originating in the flow. We also demonstrate numerically that the interaction of expansion shocks with the boundary layer produces no adverse effects.