"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.

"The Woman on the Island" by Ann Cleeves

After watching the Vera television series for years, it’s difficult to imagine Vera Stanhope looking any different from Brenda Blethyn’s portrayal – short, always wearing the same raincoat and hat, and somewhere in here 50s or 60s (Blethyn in in her 70s). But, once, Vera Stanhope was a young girl, before she was the rumpled police detective we’ve come to know. 

The Woman on the Island by Ann Cleeves is exactly that – Vera as a young girl. She travels with her widowed father to a tourist island (an island only at high tide). It’s a supposed holiday, but by this time Vera knows her father. Something else is up, and most likely it has to do with his poaching of eggs from highly valued bird species.

 

Ann Cleeves

It is that, but this time it also seems to be more. It’s mid-week, and her father tells her to stay put in their room until he returns. Of course, she doesn’t. She discreetly follows him. What she learns will help propel her on the way to her chosen career of police detective work.

 

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 nine mystery novels in the Vera Stanhope series (also a television series), six Inspector Stephen Ramsay mysteries, and several others works and short stories. The Jimmy Perez novels are the basis for the BBC television series “Shetland.” Cleeves lives in northeastern England.

 

The Woman on the Island is a kind of prequel, but it’s not the same kind of detective story Cleeves is known for with her Vera, Jimmy Perez, and other series. It moves more in the direction of serious fiction, but with just enough mystery to keep it true to form.

 

Related:

 

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.

 

My review of The Long Call by Ann Cleeves.

"Frozen" by Ann Cleeves

I’ve read all of the Shetland mystery novels by Ann Cleeves, which feature police detective Jimmy Perez and are the basis for the popular Shetland television series starring Doug Henshall. And we’re working our way through the Veratelevision series, starring Brenda Blethyn as Vera Stanhope, the police detective based in Yorkshire. It’s based on the Vera Stanhope mystery novels by Cleeves. 

But I haven’t read the Vera books. I’m starting with a freestanding short story, Frozen.

 

In the story, Vera stops by a bookshop in the small town of Corbridge, which is not far from the home where she lives on the rather desolate moors. She’s interested in find a book about the 

Roman soldiers and women who lived along Hadrian’s Wall. The bookstore building is a former chapel, only recently converted to a retail book shop.

 

Instead of a book on Hadrian’s Wall, the shop owner is opening up the old baptismal chamber in the floor before the altar area. And in the chamber is a fully clothed skeleton. Vera recognizes the clothes and a leather band around the wrist. And she knows the skeleton belongs to a 14-year-old girl who went missing years before. But what is she doing in the baptismal chamber of the chapel?

 

The story includes Vera’s familiar colleagues like Holly and Joe, but it’s too short to go beyond a brief appearance for Joe and a slightly less brief appearance for Holly. The focus is Vera pursing the case, with all of the attributes both the television Vera and the print Vera are known for – abruptness, borderline rudeness, a diet that leaves a great deal to be desired, a wardrobe consisting of mostly a scarf and raincoat, and a razor-sharp mind that keeps plugging away until she gets it right.

 

Frozen is a good introduction to Ann Cleeves’ detective, and it looks like I’ll have a new series to read.

 

Related:

 

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.

 

My review of The Long Call by Ann Cleeves.

 

Top photograph: Brenda Blethyn as Vera in the television series.