Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from St Martin's Press via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.
As New York Timesbestseller 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.
Review:
As always, when a new vera novel comes in, I have to keep myself from running and reading it immediately! But I had 10 books ahead of it, so it had to sit there in my virtual library taunting me LOL. The story starts with the proverbial British police procedural body found by a dog walker (always, right? LOL). But this time, it's a youngster-a barely older than the kids he was working with college student. His murder makes no sense, and as Vera and her team struggle to find clues, they have to open up some past secrets to find out the truth about the home, and the deceased. Along the way Rosie has to try to fit into the team, while Vera is still reeling from the events in the last book, The Rising Tide, and the death of one of her team. Rosie may not be the character one would pick to join the unit, but she quickly earns respect from Vera and Joe (grudgingly in his case), and it will be interesting to see how she fits into the team in the next book. Vera also finds someone she can talk to, and for the long time reader, this is HUGE and makes you wonder if Cleeves is leading us to Vera's retirement (nooooo!).
About the Author:
ANN CLEEVES is the multi-million copy bestselling author behind three hit television series―Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall, Vera, starring Academy Award Nominee Brenda Blethyn, and The Long Call, starring Ben Aldridge―all of which are watched and loved in the United States. All three are available on BritBox.
The first Shetland novel, Raven Black, won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for best crime novel, and Ann was awarded the CWA Diamond Dagger in 2017. She was awarded the OBE in 2022 for services to reading and libraries. Ann lives in the United Kingdom.
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