The Healers is the fifth novel in the Inspector Ramsay series.
The healers in this book are the three owners of the Alternative Therapy Centre, Mittingford, in England’s county of Northumberland. The three are Daniel Abbott, an acupuncturist; his wife, Win, a homeopath; and Win’s mother, who offers healing through rebirthing.
A former patient at the Centre, Cissie Bowles (owner of Laverock Farm) was impressed with the treatment she received for her severe arthritis. She wrote her will so that, on her death, the farm would go to her son, Ernie. Should he die without issue, it would then pass to the Alternative Therapy Centre.
A few months after Cissie’s death, Northumbria police receive a call that Ernie has been strangled. He was in his late 50s, unmarried and without issue. Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Detective Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to investigate.
Although Ernie Bowles was generally disliked and most are pleased ‘he is no longer with us’, no-one thinks the dislike was serious enough to cause him to be strangled. Also, the three owners of the Alternative Therapy Centre have water tight alibis. Ramsay and his team are becoming despondent.
Then, the unexpected happens.
The Healers is a cosy murder mystery of 231 pages with twists that surprise and townsfolk who have secrets they are reluctant to divulge to the police.
Ramsay now has colleagues who respect his intelligence, intuition and dedication. Together, they achieve a result where they can all say: I am proud that I’m a police officer.
Reviewed by Clive Hodges
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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