Two teenagers, cycling through Prior Park in the fictitious town of Otterbridge, Northumberland, find the body of Dorothea Cassidy. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay leads the investigation to find her murderer. Dorothea was the second wife of local vicar, Edward Cassidy, and stepmother to Patrick.
Initially, no-one has a harsh word to say about the former social worker who counselled parishioners and others. Her discretion was renowned and many sought her advice. She was the holder of many secrets.
Dorothea was also determined to modernise St Mary’s Anglican and lobbied Walter Tenner, the secretary of the parochial church council, to support her various projects. Three or four times a week she would pop round to his home to get his opinion and his support for her latest idea. Face-to-face, he would say ‘yes’ so she would leave, but when the motion came to council, he voted ‘no’.
The detectives are having trouble locating the dead woman’s car. Walter Tenner, rising late, looks out of the window to see if it’s raining and sees the car parked in his front driveway. Even in death, she won’t let him be.
Continuing the investigation, Ramsay and his team interview the villagers to piece together Dorothea’s movements on the day she died. It is obvious some are lying to the police.
A few days later, there’s another murder. Walter, arriving home, finds his front door open wide. He cautiously searches the house. This time it’s not a car. It’s a body … in his bathtub. It’s time to move to another parish.
Self-effacing, modest and diligent, Ramsay is not one for socialising. His colleagues respect him but find him distant. He does, however, get results.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs – child care officer, women’s refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard – before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.
In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers’ Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland series. In addition, she has been short listed for a CWA Dagger Awards – once for her short story The Plater, and twice for the Dagger in the Library award, which is awarded not for an individual book but for an author’s entire body of work.
In 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing, at the CWA’s Dagger Awards ceremony in London.
Ann Cleeves was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Sunderland on Tuesday, July 8th, 2014, in recognition of her outstanding achievements as a crime writer. In December 2018, this was followed by an honorary award of Doctor of Letters (Hon DLitt) from Robert Gordon University (RGU) in recognition of her contribution to the world of literature and crime writing. She was awarded a further honorary degree by the University of Liverpool in October 2022.
Ann’s books have been translated into 20 languages. She’s a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. It has been adapted for radio in Germany – and in the UK where it was a Radio Times pick of the day when it was first broadcast Radio adaptations of Raven Black and White Nights have both been repeated. A television adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s Two Rivers series set in North Devon, was broadcast in October 2021. Thirteen series of Vera, the ITV adaptation starring Brenda Blethyn, have been shown in the UK and worldwide: series twelve ended on an amazing fiftieth eposode, based on Ann’s novel The Darkest Evening and an episode based on The Rising Tide was broadcast as a Christmas special. A fourteenth series is promised for 2025. There have also been eight series of Shetland, based on – or inspired by – the characters and settings of her Shetland novels, and two further series have been announced, filming in 2024 and 2025.
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