Killjoy is the fourth mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. The youth theatre cast are in their places but Gus Lynch’s female lead is missing, that is, until she’s found in the boot of his car . . . Detective Inspector Stephen Ramsay and Sergeant Gordon Hunter are assigned to head the murder enquiry, meanwhile violence is escalating on the Starling Farm Estate as police battle to contain the latest outbreak of joyriding. Is the death of Gabriella connected to the events at Starling Farm? When another death occurs, investigations suggest a possible link, and Ramsay realizes what could have provoked someone to kill . . . and kill again.
Murder in My Backyard is the second mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. 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. When detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by everyone, but sometimes her kindness had caused trouble. Yes, her two nephews were devoted to her, but they didn’t really want her interfering in their rather complicated personal lives. Even among her neighbours, Alice Parry’s helpfulness had sometimes misfired; and after her death, tension tight as a clenched fist grips the uneasy village. Meanwhile, the suspects keep rolling in, and Heppleburn’s friendly neighbourhood killer continues his nasty piece of work . . .
As New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves' popularity explodes in print and on TV, this gripping e-short, "Frozen," will introduce readers to the inimitable DI Vera Stanhope. For once, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope is managing to have a good day off. Strolling around town, she ducks into a new bookshop in a renovated chapel. But just as she does, a skeleton is discovered in the old baptismal font. Soon, a decade old mystery is revived, and Vera must uncover secrets long buried before this case once again goes cold.
Ann Cleeves returns with a delicious short story featuring DCI Vera Stanhope. Set before The Rising Tide, Vera goes on a day trip to Holy Island, eager to escape the pressures of work. When there she is reminded of the day decades earlier when she, as a teenager, went with her father Hector on another day trip, and the mystery woman he met there . . . Vera already knew then that Hector kept secrets, but this time the fledgling investigator was determined to find the truth, never realizing it would mean taking her first step onto a path to becoming a detective . . .
A USA Today Bestseller! 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 a darkly delicious short story, "The Girls on the Shore", featuring DI Matthew Venn from the Two Rivers series. It was winter. Cold and clear, a different sort of day for this coast where the westerly winds usually blew rain and cloud. Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is standing by his kitchen window when he first spots them. Two young girls, facing away from him, seemingly staring towards something in the distance. They are holding hands, and they are alone. Though not a natural with children, Matthew knows he must find out why the girls are here, on a school day, unsupervised. And so he meets Olivia and Imogen, a pair of sisters whose secrets Matthew must uncover if he hopes to get them home.
The first classic mystery novel featuring detective Inspector Ramsay from The Sunday Times bestselling author of the Vera, Shetland and Venn series, Ann Cleeves
The first classic mystery novel featuring detective Inspector Ramsay from The Sunday Times bestselling author of the Vera, Shetland and Venn series, Ann Cleeves
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again. A Lesson in Dying is the first mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Who hung the headmaster in the playground on the night of the school Halloween Party? Almost everyone in Heppleburn either hated or feared the viper-tongued Harold Medburn. Inspector Ramsay is convinced it was the headmaster’s enigmatic wife but Jack Robson, school governor and caretaker, is determined to prove her innocence. With the help of his restless daughter Patty, Jack digs into the secrets of Heppleburn, and uncovers a cesspit of lies, adultery, blackmail and madness . . . Continue the classic whodunit series with Murder in My Backyard.
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again A Bird in the Hand is the first novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. In England's birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted – a murderer . . . Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether. But as he and his fellow "twitchers" flocked from Norfolk to Scotland to the Scilly Isles, in response to rumours of rare sightings, George – with help from his lovely wife, Molly – gradually discerned the true markings of a killer. All he had to do was prove it . . . before the murderer strikes again.
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 . . .
Ann Cleeves is back with the sixth book in her Shetland series featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, whom readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, and Dead Water. A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends. But, one of them, Eleanor, disappears—apparently into thin air. It's mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. 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 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 new novel is a quintessential whodunit with surprises at every turn.
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again. A Prey to Murder is the fourth mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. The huge and powerful hawk dominated the scene. Its talons pierced the woman’s flesh and the beak pointed towards her eyes . . . The sight is a particularly horrible shock for George Palmer-Jones, ornithologist and amateur detective, as he was an old friend of the victim Eleanor Masefield. George and his wife Molly are staying at Eleanor’s family run hotel, and whilst George believed Eleanor was a beautiful and charming widow, Molly has other ideas. Is Molly a little jealous? Or was Eleanor more a black widow – a ruthless manipulator of all those caught in her far-reaching web? Can Molly prove it in time to prevent another death?
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Murder in Paradise is the third mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Cheerful festivities take a dark turn when the groom’s sister slips and tumbles to the perilous rocks below . . . Newlyweds Jim and Sarah are welcomed home from their honeymoon to the Scottish island of Kinness with a huge celebration, and the whole island is present to witness the bitter end. But did Jim’s younger sister Mary fall? Or was she pushed? George Palmer-Jones, retired birdwatcher and amateur detective, suspects the latter. But proving it will be difficult – no one wants to upset the balance of the island’s ancient relationships. There are definitely secrets being hidden, and George, helped by Sarah, begin to piece together a tragic story he wishes he had never heard. Kinness is a paradise lost . . .
A widow, Ursula Ottoway lives in a cottage, high up on the Cumbrian fells in idyllic countryside. But life is far from peaceful as her landlord, ambitious politician Marcus Grenville, wants his property back at all costs.
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Come Death and High Water is the second mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. The picturesque privately-owned island of Gillibry off the North Devon coast turns out to be the perfect site for a murder . . . A routine weekend visit by the Gillibry Bird Observatory Trust is made memorable by the owner’s announcement that he is going to sell the island. A sale would mean the end of the Observatory, which for some of the birders made life worth living. A fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage added to their distress. And when, next morning, after a fierce storm, they found Charlie dead in a bird hide, their pleasant September weekend assumed a dangerous new face. Charlie Todd’s murder could have been the deed of any member of the Trust. And it falls to one of their own, George Palmer-Jones, to unravel the identity of killer within their midst . . .
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. A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller — Soon to be an episode of the hit TV show Vera "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 . . .
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! 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, The Darkest Evening. "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.
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 Telling Tales. “Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”—Louise Penny 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. As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. But are people afraid of the killer or of their own guilty pasts? With each person’s story revisited, the Inspector begins to suspect that some deadly secrets are threatening to unfurl...
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER! NOW A BRITBOX SERIES STARRING BEN ALDRIDGE AND PEARL MACKIE The Long Call from Ann Cleeves—bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—introduces the first in the stunning Matthew Venn series. “In Matthew Venn, Ann has created a complex, daring, subtle character.” —Louise Penny "Matthew Venn is a keeper. A stunning debut for Cleeves’ latest crimefighter."—David Baldacci 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.
Blue Lightning is the fourth in a stellar suspense series from Ann Cleeves set on the Shetland Islands, the basis for the hit BBC show Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall. Inspector Jimmy Perez takes his fiancé home to Fair Isle, the tiny island he comes from, to meet his parents. The island is a magnet for bird watchers, who congregate at the local inn and lighthouse. When a local married celebrity, who had an eye for the lads, is murdered, Perez discovers that the suspects are very close to him indeed. With a sensational ending destined to create much buzz in the mystery world, Blue Lightning will thrill suspense fans everywhere.
Red Bones marks the third in a stellar suspense series set on the Shetland Islands from bestselling author Ann Cleeves--the basis for the hit BBC show Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall. When a young archaeologist discovers a set of human remains, the locals are intrigued. Is it an ancient find—or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is fatally shot and Ann Cleeves's popular series detective Jimmy Perez is called in. As claustrophobic mists swirl around the island, Inspector Perez finds himself totally in the dark.
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 Raging Storm, the extraordinary third installment in the Matthew Venn 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 Venn 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
The Mysteries of Shetland is a great value bind-up of the first three novels in Ann Cleeves phenomenal Shetland series - filmed as the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, Shetland. Containing the first three novels, Raven Black, White Nights and Red Bones, this gripping eBook bundle is the perfect introduction to Detective Jimmy Perez. Also available in the Shetland series are Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.
Ann Cleeves's Detective Vera Stanhope makes a triumphant return with this next spellbinding installment in her much applauded series, brought to life in the hit TV series Vera by Brenda Blethyn.
Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Sea Fever is the sixth mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. A rare and unrecorded sea bird captures all the birders attention whilst right under their noses the most fanatical birder of them all disappears . . . Later, Greg Franks’ corpse, the head bludgeoned, is found floating in the sea. Had it not been for Greg Franks, amateur detective George Palmer-Jones would not have been on the bird watching trip in Cornwall to the first place. He had been hired by Greg Franks’ anxious parents to try and persuade their errant son to return home. George would have turned the case down flat but the offer of a free weekend’s bird watching was too tempting to resist. Now, he must unhappily shoulder the burden of finding why the young man had been murdered. Who hated Franks enough to kill him? Almost everyone, it seems . . .
WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017 Offshore is a striking collection of short stories, all set on islands off the coast of the UK, and features cases for both DI Jimmy Perez on Shetland, and DI Willow Reeves on Uist in the Outer Hebrides. In 'Stranded', set on Hilbre near Liverpool, a young man's first love vanishes. In 'Hector's Other Woman', on Holy Island, we meet a young Vera before she becomes DI Vera Stanhope, and discover how she decides to enter the police force. One of the stories, 'Postcard from Skokholm', is written by Lynne Chitty, winner of Pan Macmillan's Bello imprint's short story competition, who introduces Ann Cleeves' beloved characters George and Molly Palmer-Jones to new readers. Ann Cleeves deftly captures the spirit of each island setting, and offers us a compelling new collection of mysteries.
As New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves's beloved Vera series explodes in popularity in print and on TV, this stunning eleventh book explores the web of secrets surrounding a young man's death. 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. Vera, Joe and new team member Rosie Bell, are soon embroiled in the case, and when a second connected body is found near the Three Dark Wives monument in the wilds of the Northumberland countryside, superstition and folklore begin to collide with fact. Vera knows she has to find Chloe to get to the truth, and the dark secrets in their community that may be far more dangerous than she could have ever believed possible.
Thin Air is the next book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series - which is now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall as detective Jimmy Perez. A group of old university friends are in Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the wedding 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 next day Eleanor's best friend Polly receives an email from her saying she'll never be found alive. And so it seems, because the woman's body is found, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Before she disappeared Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of Peerie Lizzie, a child who was drowned close by in the 1920s. And as the investigation progresses Polly feels that she too is being haunted. The case takes Jimmy Perez out of his comfort zone to London, to talk to Eleanor's colleagues and friends. But the final solution to the mystery takes him back to Shetland once more. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning and Dead Water. Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series series (ITV television drama VERA) contains six titles, of which Harbour Street is the most recent.
Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves’ beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC, and available to stream in the US. From Ann Cleeves, winner of the Crime Writers Association's Diamond Dagger Award, comes Cold Earth. 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. Cold Earth is the seventh book in the beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC.
The Long Call is the captivating first novel in a brand new series from Sunday Times bestseller and creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves. 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; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose. A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew's new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death. Finding the killer is Venn's only focus, and his team's investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.The Long Call, the first book in a stellar new series by the UK's Queen of Crime, has been optioned for TV by Silverprint, the production company behind Vera and Shetland.
The Baby-Snatcher is the sixth and final mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Marilyn Howe’s and her mother Kathleen are an inseparable duo, until one night Kathleen doesn’t come home . . . Fifteen year old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he takes the young girl home to the isolated coastal community known as the Headland. And in the Howes’ dark and cluttered kitchen they find Kathleen safe and apparently well, though acting rather mysteriously. Six months later, Ramsay has more or less forgotten the strange incident, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. And for the second time he is drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland. Then a woman’s body is washed up on the beach . . .
Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series, now a BBC television show available on streaming. Dead Water is the next stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow. The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn't want to come to the surface. In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain's most successful crime writers.
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 Glass Room. “Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”—Louise Penny 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. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over. She’s too close to the main suspect. But the investigation is too tempting, and she’s never been one to follow the rules. Somewhere there is a killer who has taken murder off the page and is making it real . . .
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