Showing results by author "Ann Cleeves"

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wildflowers. This stylised murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope intrigued. But then another body is discovered in a rock pool, the corpse again strewn with flowers. Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death. As local residents are forced to share their deepest, darkest secrets, the killer watches, waits and plans to prepare another beautiful, watery grave....

Three very different women come together at isolated Baikie’s Cottage on the North Pennines to complete an environmental survey. Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman hiding plenty of her own secrets. 

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man – loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst.

It has been 10 years since Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of 15-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. 

Who hanged the headmaster in the playground on the night of the school Hallowe'en 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, enthusiastic daughter, Patty, Jack digs into the secrets of Heppleburn, and uncovers a cesspit - of lies, adultery, blackmail and madness.

When one of DI Vera Stanhope's hippy neighbours goes missing, she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. It's an easy job to track the young woman down to a country retreat where aspiring authors gather to work through their novels. It gets complicated when a body is discovered and Vera's neighbour is found with a knife in her hand. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over to someone else, but the investigation is too tempting.

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. Challenging to live on at the best of times, with the autumn storms raging, the island feels cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped, tension is high and tempers become frayed. When a woman's body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isles bird observatory, the islanders react with fear and anger.

When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen, it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognises the victim - a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death. Yet this is no desperate act of anguish but the work of a cold and calculating killer. As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of the small Biddista community. Then another body is found. Perez knows he must break the cycle before another death occurs. But this is a crazy time of year, when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems....

Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake, where the body of a teenager has been discovered. After trawling through the missing persons files, he deduces that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. For country prison officer Hannah Morton, it is the shock of her life. Michael had been her boyfriend, and she had been with him the night he disappeared. The news report that a body has been found brings back dreaded and long-buried memories from her past.... 

Drawn in by the reputation of the islands, a new English family move to the area, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn of their home, rumours of her affair with the husband begin to spread like wildfire. With suspicion raining down on the family, DI Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate, knowing that it will mean the return to the islands of his on-off lover and boss Willow Reeves, who will run the case.

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

A group of old university friends travel to Unst to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party, one of them, Eleanor, disappears. The following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note. 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 a ghost.

When 15-year-old Marilyn Howe turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay's doorstep he has little choice but to invite her in. Marilyn and her mother, Kathleen, are a familiar sight around Heppleburn. But Kathleen has unaccountably failed to return home that evening. Ramsay 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. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. Then a woman's body is washed up on the beach.

Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Until a shocking discovery. The owners of a big country house have employed a young ecologist named Patrick to look after the place while they're away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley. DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene with her colleagues. When they look round the attic of the house - where Patrick has a flat - she finds a second body.

When the body of journalist Jerry Markham is found in a traditional Shetland boat, young Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in from the Hebrides to head up the investigation. Since the death of his fiancée, Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out the loop, but his interest in this new case is stirred. Markham had left the islands years before to pursue his burgeoning writing career. He had few friends there, so why was he back in Shetland?

In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend, Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind she shares his Mediterranean ancestry, and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity.

Twenty-five-year-old Lizzie Bartholomew has had more than her fair share of struggles. Abandoned as a baby, she spent her childhood moving between foster homes. Now she is running away from her past.... A holiday in Morocco seems to be the perfect escape. Especially when she meets Philip, a fellow tourist who distracts her from her troubles. After a brief affair, Lizzie returns to England, to a solicitor's letter. Philip Samson has died. In his will, he has left Lizzie a gift of £15,000. But there are conditions attached to this unexpected legacy....

As the snow falls thickly, Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter, Jessie, are swept along in the crowd onto the Metro. But when the train is stopped, Jessie notices that an old lady hasn’t left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed as she sat on the crowded train. Arriving at the scene, DI Vera Stanhope is relieved to have an excuse to escape the festivities. Soon Vera and Joe are on their way to the south Northumberland town of Mardle, where Margaret lived. Then a second woman is murdered....

For vicar's wife Dorothea Cassidy, Thursdays were special. Every week she would look forward to the one day she could call her own. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other.... As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea's last hours.

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 faraway 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?