DI Vera Stanhope is a surprisingly divisive figure. Some readers (like me) love her for all her eccentricities (including her hideous hat), while there are folks I know who can’t bear her for the exact same reasons.
As this is the 11th book in the hugely successful series, one could be forgiven for wondering if the momentum might be slowing as the protagonist ages, but I am very happy to confirm that DI Stanhope is very much still (literally) in the driver’s seat and is cracking on with new cases full of intrigue.
A young man, who had been working as a carer in a residential care home for troubled youth, has been found dead close to the premises, and one of the young girls who was in his care, 14-year-old Chloe Spence, is missing.
Vera, her loyal sergeant Joe, and Rosie are called out to the scene. Vera is still guilt-ridden and reeling from the death of Holly, a promising young detective from the previous book. From the start Vera is unconvinced that the missing teen has anything to do with the murder, but when a second body connected to the victim is discovered near The Dark Wives, a stone monument in the rugged Northumbrian landscape, she can’t help but begin to wonder.
One of the things that sets writers like Ann Cleeves apart and ensures that readers keep coming back for more, is the very ordinariness of the characters she creates and their next-level relatability. They could be us, we could be them, although I hope I would make better choices when faced with similar circumstances. Then again, who knows how I’d react, how any of us would react? That is the genius of these masterful storytellers and what elevates them to bestseller status. Another terrific read from one of the best in the business.
Reviewed by Maryanne Vagg
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon in the UK. 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.
BOOKS
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.
On 26 October 2017, Ann was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing.
Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007. 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 12 ended on an amazing 50th episode, based on Ann’s novel The Darkest Evening. 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.
She was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List, “for services to Reading and Libraries.”
In July 2023, during the opening ceremony for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Ann was presented with the Theakston Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution Award, in recognition of her impressive writing career.
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