"The Dark Wives" by Ann Cleeves

If you’re a fan of the DCI Vera Stanhope mystery series on Britbox, you know what a find characterization Brenda Blethyn makes of the title character. Even when I see the actress on other programs, I keep expecting her to drive that beat-up old Land Rover, wear her trench coat and fisherman’s hat, and call everyone “Pet.”  

And reading The Dark Wives by Ann Cleeves, the newest entry in the Vera Stanhope series, all I can see is Brenda Blethyn. The image is branded on my brain. 

 

In The Dark Wives, Cleeves, a fine storyteller, weaves a dark tale. At a privately operated care home for troubled teens, a young worker is found dead, his head bashed with a hammer. A resident 14-year-old girl is missing. And Vera and her team can find no motive, no suspects, and no clues. Except the missing girl. But having read the diary the girl left behind, Vera can’t see as a killer. What she does begin to see is that the girl is in danger. The diary makes a vague reference to a dark car following her. And more reports of a dark car crop up.

 

The investigation shifts from the Newcastle area in northwestern England to a village some 30 miles to the north. The girl’s grandparents have an old, unused cottage nearby the village. The dead man was familiar with the area, having hiked it many times with his father. And rather brooding over the area and the case are three legendary monoliths, known as “The Dark Wives.” 

 

Ann Cleeves

Through a combination of dogged, routine police work and Vera’s uncanny intuition, the team begins to grasp what’s happening. But they may be too late to save the missing girl.

 

Cleeves has published eight mysteries in the Jimmy Perez / Shetland series, including Raven Black (2008), Red Bones (2009), White Nights (2010), Blue Lightning (2011), Dead Water (2014), Thin Air (2015), Cold Earth (2017), and Wild Fire (2019). She’s also published 11 mystery novels in the Vera Stanhope series (also a television series), six Inspector Stephen Ramsay mysteries, and several other works and short stories. The Jimmy Perez novels are the basis for the BBC television series “Shetland.” Cleeves lives in northeastern England. 

 

The Dark Wives is a classic Vera Stanhope tale, told with imagination and not a small amount of the tension as the case nears its solution. 

 

Related:

 

Missing in the Snow by Ann Cleeves.

 

Shetland author’s lost laptop with draft of next novel found in snow – Lucinda Cameron at The Scotsman.

 

The Long Call by Ann Cleeves.

 

The Woman on the Island by Ann Cleeves. 

 

My review of Wild Fire by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of Red Bones by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of Raven Black by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of White Nights by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves. 

 

My review of Dead Water by Ann Cleeves.

 

My review of Thin Air by Ann Cleeves.

Some Monday Readings

 

Individualism – Wilfred McClay at Modern Age.

 

Toward the Recovery of American Culture – Matthew Gasda at American Affairs.

 

When Students Become Terrorists – Eli Lake at The Free Press.

 

The delusions of the West’s politicians – Douglas Murray at The Spectator.

 

Nehemiah Questions Robert Frost About Walls – poem by Cynthia Erlandson at Society of Classical Poets.