This is the first book by Ann Cleeves that I have read - it won't be the last. Although I am not a huge fan of crime fiction I enjoyed the almost claustrophobic atmosphere created by the setting: a tiny, damp, foggy island where a tiny community of haves and have-nots try to do the best they can ...
I found the structure of the story different to earlier ones in the series where we are introduced to all of the characters first and given a chance to get to know them before we meet our Vera. Here she is in from the beginning but yet the characters still get chance to develope for us before the...
I had only read the Shetland Island series when I decided to give this one a try. This is one of Ann Cleeves' earlier series. There were six in the series. This is the first. Like most writers (or most any other profession), Ms. Cleeves improved as she wrote. The story was a good one with quite a...
No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . but here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David's Eve. And when detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by every...
The local New Age health center was making a killing. Two stranglings lead Inspector Stephen Ramsay to the local center for alternative healing where the victims were known. Meanwhile, the murderer quietly observes Ramsay--planning a new slaying.
There are two facts I must convey to you before reviewing the book. One: I am extremely uncomfortable, to the point of pain, around people with cognitive and/or communicative disorders or inabilities. Two: I was the object of my pedophile mother's sexual interest until I was fifteen.Unsurprisingl...
What I like most about Anne Cleeves mysteries is her writing style. It is almost like going back in time and reading an Agatha Christie mystery. I was completely engaged in trying to solve the mystery for Inspector Ramsay. Of course, I didn't and the hero:inspector came through in the end. The on...
Η Βρετανή Ann Cleeves είναι ένα από τα πλέον ηχηρά ονόματα στο χώρο της αστυνομικής λογοτεχνίας, κερδίζοντας μάλιστα το 2006 το εξαιρετικά σημαντικό βραβείο, Duncan Lawrie Dagger της Ένωσης Βρετανών Συγγραφέων Αστυνομικής Λογοτεχνίας, για το βιβλίο της "Raven Black". Το γεγονός ότι πριν αφοσιωθεί...
Kinness was often described as a Paradise of beautiful beaches and bountiful birdlife. But it was hardly idyllic for a child named Mary who was found dead after her brother's wedding. Birdwatcher George Palmer-Jones sought to expose Mary's murderers--and received no help from the islanders.
In a bird watcher's paradise, murder comes home to roost. Among the birders from around the world gathered for the dazzling spring avian migration on the Texas coast are three old friends from England - Rob, Mick, and Oliver - celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their first unforgettable tr...
The day after her arrival at Baikie’s Grace woke suddenly. The room was filled with light and she knew she had overslept, thought with a sudden panic that she might be in trouble. She looked around the room, not sure for a moment where she was. There were bunk beds, crammed into the big room so a...
If anything she was more numb, more clear-sighted. She thought nothing could touch her or hurt her again. Is this what it’s like to be ill, she wondered, what they mean by a breakdown? She remembered newspaper stories of a battered wife who had killed her husband. After years of putting up with b...
Hunter said, trying not to show how pleased he was, trying to sound as if it were a chore he could do without. “Yeah. All right.”After Hunter had gone Ramsay sat in the incident room and took out the file he was compiling on Faye Cooper. In a corner a DC was stabbing inexpertly at a typewriter. O...
She heard it ringing as she shut the kitchen door behind her but she didn’t go back to answer it. She had a meal to cook. Emma heard the phone but she let it ring. She was bathing Helen in the children’s bathroom at the top of the house. A red net filled with plastic toys ...
The policeman seemed convinced that the inquiry was all but over and that Stephen Oliver would lead them to his father. He sang snatches of Welsh hymns and even expected George to join in the mood of jubilation and self-congratulation. ‘It was all your doing,’ he said. ‘If...
His fear had shrivelled him, so that he looked smaller. George almost expected him to cry, but he was dry-eyed and white, shivering, as frightened and wary of his rescuers as he was of the well. It had taken little time to get him out of the shaft. Tina had run to the coastguard cottage. The men ...
She arrived early, feeling cheerful and optimistic but was soon worn down by the atmosphere of the place. She did not enjoy the practical business of being a magistrate. The prestige of being a JP, the training sessions with other professionals, the study of theoretical case histories, the social...
Everyone was scratchy and wired: lack of sleep, an overload of caffeine and the excitement that comes with a possible break in the case. An underlying sense of failure because they hadn’t caught the killer before another person had died. He’d been home to snatch a couple of hours’ rest and a show...
She wanted to sort her thoughts. She’d sent Ashworth to Barnard Bridge to talk to Connie Masters. Holly and Charlie were back at the Willows, interviewing the hotel staff members who had been absent the previous day. It seemed to Vera, looking down at the street where the weekly market was alread...
He’d done all that Willow had asked him. He could get on a plane and be home that afternoon, ready to drop Cassie back at Duncan’s before arriving in Unst by the last ferry. And ready to share a glass of whisky with Willow before she disappeared to bed. The thought tempted him. But he’d promised ...
When the National Trust sold the land to meet local housing need, they had not envisaged the split-level bungalows with balconies overlooking the harbour which were finally built there, and the estate caused the Trust considerable embarrassment. The Binghams settled easily into their home. They g...
Not mob handed. Porteous and Stout would knock on the door, very polite, very civilized. There’d be a car at the end of the track and someone on the hill behind the house with binoculars in case Alec tried to get out on foot. Because, as Eddie said, Reeves knew every inch of that hill. &nbs...
George borrowed Jonathan’s car and went to the airstrip to meet them. There were the same two officers who had come to Kinness before. They were confused and unhappy—they did not want the responsibility of coming to a decision about violent death—but George soon lost patience with them. They woul...
‘Why would Enderby come north to stay in Harbour Street if he’s not here for work?’ Vera was pacing up and down in front of the whiteboard. Since Holly had come up with the information, Vera had been worrying at the notion. She couldn’t see the man as a killer, but couldn’t imagine why he would l...
She called him back. ‘Where are you?’ he asked immediately. As if she were a teenage girl out on the town without permission. Vera thought his daughter would have a tough time when she was old enough to think for herself. ‘I came to visit Rickard,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you about it later.’ Maybe....
The wind rattles a roof tile and hisses out from the churchyard, spitting a Coke can onto the street. There was a gale the afternoon Abigail Mantel died and it seems to Emma that it’s been windy ever since, that there have been ten years of storms, of hailstones like bullets blown against her win...
Once there’d been a community here and you could still see where the houses had been, the crumbling walls and the outline of the fields, but now the church was all that was left and most of the congregation came by car. It was one of those still, sunny days that came occasionally in late spring. ...