A great advocate and supporter of libraries, the best-selling writer Ann Cleeves was awarded an OBE in the 2022 New Year Honours List ‘for services to Reading and Libraries.’ Typically modest, this author of more than 30 novels responded to the nomination by saying, ‘I’m delighted that this honour highlights the importance of reading and libraries and celebrates the skilled staff who work in the field.’
Throughout her long career Ann has created a number of enduring characters whose exploits have made the transition to television, including Vera Stanhope, of the eponymous series Vera, Shetland’s Jimmy Perez and mostly recently an adaptation of The Long Call, the first in Ann’s new series set in North Devon featuring Detective Matthew Venn.
In 2017 she was presented with the Diamond Dagger of the Crime Writers’ Association, the highest honour in British crime writing, for her excellent writing and contribution to the crime writing world. In 2006 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.
We have picked out a selection of titles from Ann’s long career – for the full list of books, eBooks and aAudiobooks by Ann Cleeves we have available to borrow, please visit our website.
In true Agatha Christie style, Cleeves once again pulls the wool over our eyes with cunning and conviction.
Colin Dexter
Sea Fever
Amateur sleuth, George Palmer-Jones, and his fellow bird-watchers on the Jessie Ellen catch sight of a rare sea bird. When one of the party goes missing and is found floating in the sea, Palmer-Jones must find out who murdered the man.
Murder in My Back Yard
When a proposed housing development results in uproar and murder, the pressure is on Inspector Ramsay to find the killer. Just as he thinks he is nearing a conclusion, disaster strikes again and Ramsay must test his measure as a detective.
The Crow Trap
At the isolated Baikie’s Cottage, three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey. The three women each know the meaning of betrayal. So when people begin to mysteriously die, DI Vera Stanhope is sent to investigate.
The Glass Room
DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbours keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation so she has more tolerance for them than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. But her path leads her to more than just a missing friend.
Raven Black
The murder of teenager Catherine Ross sends shockwaves through a small Shetland community, and most of the fingers of blame point to loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But Catherine’s vicious and sudden demise has thrown a veil of suspicion over everyone who knew her, and one local detective is keeping all options open.
Blue Lightning
Shetland Detective Jimmy Perez knows it will be a difficult homecoming when he returns to the Fair Isles to introduce his fiancée, Fran, to his parents. When a woman’s body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isles bird observatory, Jimmy must investigate the old-fashioned way.
Too Good to be True
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 Long Call
In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father’s funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too. Now he’s back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region.
The Heron’s Cry
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. His daughter Eve is a glassblower, and the murder weapon is a shard of one of her 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.
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