Ann Cleeves

When murder strikes a remote hamlet in the Shetland Islands, and the body of a teenage girl turns up in the winter snow, Inspector Jimmy Perez launches an investigation into the killing that takes him into the heart of sinister secrets from the past. Winner of the 2006 Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. 25,000 first printing.

Book One of the Shetland Island Quartet

Raven Black

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! From Ann Cleeves—bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes the first in a gripping new series, told with deep compassion and searing insight. “Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”—Louise Penny A PEOPLE MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF FALL 2019 In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. On the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too. Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. The case calls Matthew back to the people and places of his past, as deadly secrets hidden at their hearts are revealed, and his new life is forced into a collision course with the world he thought he’d left behind.

The Long Call

An ingenious psychological suspense novel.At the isolated Baikie`s Cottage on the North Pennines, three very different women come together. Three women who each know the meaning of betrayal... For team leader Rachael the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide... When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide - a verdict Rachael finds impossible to accept. Only when the next death occurs does a fourth woman enter the picture - the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope...

The Crow Trap

An exhibition at The Herring House art gallery is disturbed by a distraught stranger who claims to be an amnesiac unaware of his true identity, a situation complicated for Inspector Perez when the man turns up murdered the next day, in the follow-up to the award-winning Raven Black. 25,000 first printing.

A Thriller

White Nights

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes the stunning new Vera Stanhope novel. "Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers."—Louise Penny "As a huge fan of both the Shetland and Vera series of books, I had high expectations for Cleeves’ latest. . . . A stunning debut for Cleeves’ latest crimefighter."—David Baldacci on The Long Call On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home in the hills. Though the road is familiar, she misses a turning and soon becomes lost and disorientated. A car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her, its door left open, and she stops to help. There is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat. Vera takes the child and, driving on, she arrives at a place she knows well. Brockburn is a large, grand house in the wilds of Northumberland, now a little shabby and run down. It’s also where her father, Hector, grew up. Inside, there’s a party in full swing: music, Christmas lights and laughter. Outside, unbeknownst to the revelers, a woman lies dead in the snow. As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing Northumberland countryside, Brockburn begins to give up its secrets, and as Vera digs deeper into her investigation, she also begins to uncover her family’s complicated past.

A Vera Stanhope Novel

The Darkest Evening

When a young archaeologist discovers a set of human remains, the locals are intrigued. Then an elderly woman is fatally shot and detective Jimmy Perez is called in. As claustrophobic mists swirl around the island, Inspector Perez finds himself in the dark.

Red Bones

Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—returns with the extraordinary follow-up to The Long Call, in the Two Rivers series, soon to be a major TV series too. North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder--Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter's broken vases. Dr Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He's a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved, though, to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband. Then another body is found--killed in a similar way. Matthew soon finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home. DI Matthew Venn returns in The Heron's Cry, in Ann Cleeves powerful next novel, proving once again that she is a master of her craft.

The Heron's Cry

The seventh Shetland novel The darkest secrets are buried deepest . . . In the black days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of peaty water and mud smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez becomes obsessed with finding out her identity and what she was doing there. Then it emerges that she was already dead when the landslide hit the house and Perez finds himself with a murder investigation to solve. Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves’ bestselling Shetland series – a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshall.

Cold Earth

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes the stunning tenth Vera Stanhope novel, The Rising Tide, a powerful novel about guilt, betrayal, and the longheld secrets people keep. "Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers."—Louise Penny For fifty years a group of friends have been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now . . . But with the tide rising, secrets long-hidden are finding their way to the surface, and Vera and the team may find themselves in more danger than they could have believed possible . . .

The Rising Tide

A hidden past, with undercurrents of murder . . .Dead Water is the fifth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - which is now the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, SHETLAND. When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, outside the house of the Fiscal, down at the Marina, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation. Since the death of his fiancée, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his interest in this new case is stirred and he decides to help the inquiry. Markham - originally a Shetlander but who had made a name for himself in London - had left the islands years before. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl, Evie Watt, who is now engaged to a seaman. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back? Willow and Jimmy are led to Sullum Voe, the heart of Shetland's North Sea oil and gas industry. It soon emerges from their investigation that Markham was chasing a story in his final days. One that must have been significant enough to warrant his death . . . Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones and Blue Lightning. Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series (ITV television drama VERA) contains five titles, of which The Glass Room is the most recent.

(Shetland series 5)

Dead Water

Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancee, Fran, to his parents. It's a community where everyone knows each other, and strangers, while welcomed, are still viewed with a degree of mistrust.

Blue Lightning

It has been ten years since Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year-old Abigail Mantel. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie's innocence. But are people afraid of the killer, or of their own guilty pasts?

Telling Tales

Too Good To Be True is a gripping Quick Read from Ann Cleeves, featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez from the bestselling Shetland series.When young teacher Anna Blackwell is found dead in her home, the police think her death was suicide or a tragic accident. After all, Stonebridge is a quiet country village in the Scottish Borders, where murders just don't happen. But Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez soon arrives from far-away Shetland when his ex-wife, Sarah, asks him to look into the case. The local gossips are saying that her new husband, Tom, was having an affair with Anna. Could Tom have been involved with her death? Sarah refuses to believe it - but needs proof.Anna had been a teacher. She must have loved kids. Would she kill herself knowing there was nobody to look after her daughter? She had seemed happier than ever before she died. And to Perez, this suggests not suicide, but murder . . .

Too Good to Be True

Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series – a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall as detective Jimmy Perez. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears – apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note, saying she'll never be found alive. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to Unst to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Her interest in the ghost had seemed unhealthy – obsessive, even – to her friends: an indication of a troubled mind. But Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor's death than they first thought. Is there a secret that lies behind the myth? One so shocking that someone would kill – many years later – to protect? Ann Cleeves' striking Shetland novel explores the tensions between tradition and modernity that lie deep at the heart of a community, and how events from the past can have devastating effects on the present. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water, Cold Earth and Wild Fire.

Thin Air

The eighth and final Shetland novel On a small island, rumours can be deadly . . . A new English family have moved to Shetland, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn of their home, rumours of her affair with the husband begin to spread like wild fire. With suspicion raining down on the family, DI Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. For him it will mean returning to the islands of his on–off lover and boss Willow Reeves, who will run the case. Perez is already facing the most disturbing investigation of his career when Willow drops a bomb-shell that will change his life forever. Is he ready for what is to come? Wild Fire is the eighth and final book in Ann Cleeves’ bestselling Shetland series – a major BBC One drama, starring Douglas Henshall.

Wild Fire

Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—returns with the extraordinary third in the Two Rivers series. Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions. When Jem Rosco—sailor, adventurer, and legend—blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own. This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Matthew finds his judgment clouded. As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets. “A friend of mine once joked that the work of Ann Cleeves is the closest the crime fiction genre comes to evoking ASMR—the euphoric, pleasant, spine-tingling sensation that’s all the rage on YouTube. The books never get too dark, never venture too far into dangerous territory, but aren’t outright cozy, either.”—The New York Times

A Detective Matthew Venn Novel

The Raging Storm

Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued. But then a second body - that of young teacher Lily Marsh - is discovered the water strewn with flowers.

Hidden Depths

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but she has more tolerance for her hippy neighbours than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. It's an easy job to track the young woman down to a country retreat where aspiring authors gather to work through their novels. It gets complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over to someone else but the investigation is too tempting. Then another body is found, and Vera suspects that someone is playing games with her.

The Glass Room

Discovering the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, Inspector Vera Stanhope, hoping that she has uncovered a simple natural-causes death, subsequently finds strangle bruises that reveal that the victim was murdered. By the award-winning author of the Jimmy Perez series. TV tie-in.

A Vera Stanhope Mystery

Silent Voices

The sixth novel in the Vera series Harbour Street is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves' Vera series--which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn. Also available in the Vera Stanhope series are The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices and The Glass Room. Ann Cleeves' Shetland series (BBC television drama Shetland) contains five titles, of which Dead Water is the most recent.

Ann Cleeves

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