This review contains spoilers for Raven Black and Blue Lightning. “She became what other people wanted her to be; she reflected back their dreams and desires.” There is an exquisite beauty to the structure of the Shetland series: two quartets, miniatures that try to capture the islands, with a well-defined character arc across each quartetContinue reading “Book review – Wild Fire”
Tag Archives: Ann Cleeves
Book review – Cold Earth
This review contains spoilers for Raven Black and Blue Lightning. The penultimate entry in Shetland sees some of the best character writing and plotting of the series, with the book’s major weakness being in biting off more plot than it can chew, for the ending is a little contrived. The premise recalls Raven Black, theContinue reading “Book review – Cold Earth”
Book review – Thin Air
“Guilt was like a shadow, always there, changing shape, darkening the edges.“ This review contains spoilers for Raven Black and Blue Lightning. Of the Shetland mysteries, Thin Air is the creepiest one, leaning gently into the tropes of horror. On Scotland’s northernmost isle, the isle of Unst, two women have gathered for their friend’s hamfarin’,Continue reading “Book review – Thin Air”
Book review – Dark Water
“He walked down the hill into the fog. It lay like a pool over the lower ground, swallowing him up, so that he felt as if he were drowning.” This review contains spoilers for Raven Black and Blue Lightning. Dark Water begins the second of Cleeves’s two Shetland quartets. The division of the series intoContinue reading “Book review – Dark Water”
Book review – Blue Lightning
This review contains spoilers for Raven Black. Blue Lightning rounds off the first Shetland quartet and brings off a powerful, emotional finish to one of the best series in crime fiction. Rarely do crime series manage to tell a story about their main characters that are engaging enough to be more than just another excuseContinue reading “Book review – Blue Lightning”
Book review – Red Bones
“This is about bones in the land. Old, red bones.” This review contains spoilers for Raven Black. Red Bones is Cleeves’s third book of her Shetland series. This story centres the island of Whalsay, and brings to the fore Perez’s young, hapless assistant, Sandy Wilson. His grandmother falls victim to what appears to be anContinue reading “Book review – Red Bones”
Book review – White Nights
“There was the feeling that you had to make the most of it, be outside, enjoy it before the dark days came again. Here in Shetland they called it the ‘simmer dim’.“ This review contains spoilers for Raven Black. There is a unique quality to Raven Black that is impossible to reproduce, with the bleakContinue reading “Book review – White Nights”
Book review – The Crow Trap
For me, The Crow Trap truly illustrates the magnificent strength of Ann Cleeves’s writing. I remember little of it as I read it a while ago, mostly out of a sense of obligation since I wanted to read all of the Vera series, and this was the opening instalment. It didn’t seem my kind ofContinue reading “Book review – The Crow Trap”
Book review – The Sleeping and the Dead
The Sleeping and the Dead comes from a set of books Cleeves wrote around the turn of the millennium, after wrapping up her first two detective series (Palmer-Jones and Inspector Ramsey) and turning to fresh ideas. Between 1999 and 2006, she wrote four new standalones: The Crow Trap, The Sleeping and the Dead, Burial ofContinue reading “Book review – The Sleeping and the Dead”
Book review – Burial of Ghosts
I was very surprised to discover that Burial of Ghosts was written in the first person, from the point of view of Lizzie Bartholomew, an orphan woman of 25 years, whom we first meet whilst she’s on holiday in Morocco. She is a woman with a troubled past. She has stabbed a man before, andContinue reading “Book review – Burial of Ghosts”
Wet Broken Things 