Showing results by author "Ann Cleeves" in All Categories

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now available for the first time in the US. "Narrator Simon Mattacks is terrific at setting the local Northumberland scene. He's also adept with subtle voice adjustments as the...

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the Inspector Ramsay series featuring a talented, brilliant detective—now available for the first time in the US. Marilyn Howe and her mother Kathleen are an inseparable duo, until one night Kathleen doesn’t come home . . . Fifteen-year-old Marilyn...

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote The Sleeping and the Dead, a vivid standalone psychological suspense novel—now available for the first time in the US. Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake where the body of a teenager has been discovered. After trawling through the...

The man’s body is found in the early morning light by a local dog walker in the park outside Rosebank, a home for troubled teens in the coastal village of Longwater. The victim is Josh, a staff member, who was due to work the previous night but never showed up. DI Vera Stanhope is called out to investigate the death, with her only clue being the disappearance of one of the home’s residents, fourteen-year-old Chloe Spence. Vera can’t bring herself to believe that a teenager is responsible for the murder, but even she can’t dismiss the possibility.

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 Venn finds his judgment clouded.

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 . . .

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbors keep her well supplied in homebrew and conversation, and somehow bonds have formed. When one of them goes missing, Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer’s House, a country retreat where aspiring authors work on their stories. Things get complicated when a body is discovered, and Vera’s neighbor is found with a knife in her hand.

On a hot summer on the Northumberland coast, 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 now, Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death. As local residents are forced to share their private lives, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed. And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave....

A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper—and Vera played a key part in his downfall. Now, Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-nineties, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, and that his body is buried close to St Mary’s Island in Whitley Bay. 

As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the shouts and laughter of Christmas revelers break the muffled silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro. But when the train is stopped due to the bad weather, and the other passengers fade into the swirling snow, Jessie notices that one lady hasn't left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed. Arriving at the scene, DI Vera Stanhope is relieved to have an excuse to escape the holiday festivities.

In the dark 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 mud and water smash through a house in its path. Everyone thinks the home is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez soon becomes obsessed with tracing her identity and realizes he must find out who she was and how she died.

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. Abigail’s killer is still at large. For one young woman, Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend—and of that fearful winter’s day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch. 

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.

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.

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.

Weißt du, wem du trauen kannst? Winter auf den Shetland-Inseln. Still ruht die Welt unter einer weißen Decke. Das Mädchen im Schnee trägt einen roten Schal um den Hals. Um sie herum sitzen Raben. Als Fran Hunter die Leiche der Sechzehnjährigen findet, ist es um die Dorfidylle geschehen. Ein Schuldiger ist schnell gefunden. Die Polizei verhaftet Magnus Tait, einen menschenscheuen Sonderling. Doch dann verschwindet während des Wikingerfestivals "Up Helly Aa" Frans kleine Tochter Cassie.

En gruppe venner, der har holdt sammen siden universitetstiden, rejser fra Londons storbyliv til Unst, Shetlandsøernes nordligste ø, for at fejre, at en fra gruppen skal giftes med en shetlænder. Men sent om natten under bryllupsfesten forsvinder én af vennerne, Eleanor - tilsyneladende i den blå luft. Det er midsommer, en tid med lyse nætter og uforudsigelig tåge på Shetlandsøerne. Dagen efter opdager Eleanors veninde Polly en e-mail.

Ein Mörder, der keine Spuren hinterlässt. Ein Opfer, das im Nichts verschwindet. Es hätte der schönste Tag in Carolines Leben werden sollen: Hochzeit auf den Shetlands. Mittsommernacht, die Küste in silbernes Licht getaucht. Die Gäste feiern ausgelassen - bis eine Freundin der Braut tot aufgefunden wird. Detective Jimy Perez und seine Kollegin Willow Reeves verfolgen eine mysteriöse Spur: Kurz vor ihrem Tod hatte Eleanor erzählt, sie habe "Peerie Lizzie" gesehen, den Geist eines kleinen Mädchens, das hier gut hundert Jahre zuvor ums Leben gekommen war. Alles nur Spuk?

Raue Landschaft, dunkle Geheimnisse. Whalsay: ein kleines, beschauliches Eiland. Teil der Shetlandinseln. Nur 1030 Einwohner, die sich vom Fischfang ernähren. Jeder kennt jeden, jeder weiß über alles Bescheid. Die perfekte Idylle. Bis eines Tages die alte Mima tot aufgefunden wird. Angeblich war es ein Jagdunfall. Doch Detective Jimmy Perez ist sich da nicht so sicher. Kurze Zeit zuvor war bei Ausgrabungen auf Mimas Land ein Skelett gefunden worden. Mima war beim Anblick der Knochen erbleicht, hatte jedoch kein Wort gesagt.

După moartea logodnicei sale, inspectorul Jimmy Perez a ieșit din sistem, dar noul caz îi trezește interesul și hotărăște să se implice în investigație. Pentru Willow, faptul că el e de-al locului se dovedește o binecuvântare – numai un om din insule poate înțelege fațada de secrete pe care o construiește această comunitate unită.