I trained as a social worker when I was in my twenties and occasionally worked with troubled young people who’d grown up in chaotic families. Perhaps, that was why a radio documentary about teens living in residential care moved me so much. The programme explored a few of the unscrupulous private companies that run residential…
It’s hard coming to the end of a series. I knew that the Shetland novels had run their course and I needed something different to spark my imagination. New characters to meet. I’d always dismissed suggestions that I should set books in Devon where I grew up. It lacked the wildness, the authenticity of Shetland…
Wild Fire is the much-anticipated eighth and final entry in Ann Cleeves’s beloved Shetland Island series. When the Flemings―designer Helena and architect Daniel―move into a remote community in the north of Shetland, they think it’s a fresh start for themselves and their children. But their arrival triggers resentment, and Helena begins to receive small drawings of…
From CWA Diamond Dagger Award winner Ann Cleeves comes The Glass Room, the fifth book in the Vera Stanhope series, published for the first time in the US. Read Janet Webb’s review of The Glass Room! DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbors keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation, and…
Now available in the U.S., Hidden Depths is the third book in Diamond Dagger award-winning crime novelist Ann Cleeves’s Vera Stanhope series, brought to life in the hit TV series Vera (available January 23, 2018). On a hot summer on the Northumberland coast, Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son…
The Seagull by Ann Cleeves is the eighth book in the Vera Stanhope series—a searing new novel about corruption deep in the heart of a community and fragile, fracturing family relationships (available September 5, 2017). A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and…
Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves is the second book in the Vera Stanhope series, where a ten-year-old murder case is reopened, leading to an investigation into a small town full of big secrets (available August 22, 2017). Take a visual tour of Telling Tales by Ann Cleeves! It has been ten years since Jeanie Long…
Cold Earth is the 7th book in the Shetland Island Mystery series (available April 18, 2017). 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…
Read about how Ann Cleeves conceived of her famous character, Vera Stanhope, and then make sure you're signed in and comment below for a chance to win Season 1 of the hit series Vera on DVD! Vera Stanhope arrived fully formed into a book that was never planned to include a detective. The Crow Trap…
Harbour Street by Ann Cleeves is the 6th installment of the Vera Stanhope Mystery Series about a collection of murders that seem to be connected by one seemingly innocent neighborhood. What are the residents of Harbour Street trying to hide? (Available December 1, 2015) As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the shouts and laughter…
