New Releases by Ann CLEEVES

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Come Death and High Water is the second mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. The picturesque privately-owned island of Gillibry off the North Devon coast turns out to be the perfect site for a murder . . . A routine weekend visit by the Gillibry Bird Observatory Trust is made memorable by the owner’s announcement that he is going to sell the island. A sale would mean the end of the Observatory, which for some of the birders made life worth living. A fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage added to their distress. And when, next morning, after a fierce storm, they found Charlie dead in a bird hide, their pleasant September weekend assumed a dangerous new face. Charlie Todd’s murder could have been the deed of any member of the Trust. And it falls to one of their own, George Palmer-Jones, to unravel the identity of killer within their midst . . .

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Murder in Paradise is the third mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Cheerful festivities take a dark turn when the groom’s sister slips and tumbles to the perilous rocks below . . . Newlyweds Jim and Sarah are welcomed home from their honeymoon to the Scottish island of Kinness with a huge celebration, and the whole island is present to witness the bitter end. But did Jim’s younger sister Mary fall? Or was she pushed? George Palmer-Jones, retired birdwatcher and amateur detective, suspects the latter. But proving it will be difficult – no one wants to upset the balance of the island’s ancient relationships. There are definitely secrets being hidden, and George, helped by Sarah, begin to piece together a tragic story he wishes he had never heard. Kinness is a paradise lost . . .

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again A Bird in the Hand is the first novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. In England''s birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted – a murderer . . . Young Tom French was found dead, lying in a marsh on the Norfolk coast, with his head bashed in and his binoculars still around his neck. One of the best birders in England, Tom had put the village of Rushy on the birdwatching map. Everyone liked him. Or did they? George Palmer-Jones, an elderly birdwatcher who decided quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovered mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remained baffled by a deed that could have been motivated by thwarted love, pure envy, or something else altogether. But as he and his fellow "twitchers" flocked from Norfolk to Scotland to the Scilly Isles, in response to rumours of rare sightings, George – with help from his lovely wife, Molly – gradually discerned the true markings of a killer. All he had to do was prove it . . . before the murderer strikes again.

The Mysteries of Shetland is a great value bind-up of the first three novels in Ann Cleeves phenomenal Shetland series - filmed as the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, Shetland. Containing the first three novels, Raven Black, White Nights and Red Bones, this gripping eBook bundle is the perfect introduction to Detective Jimmy Perez. Also available in the Shetland series are Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.

The Baby-Snatcher is the sixth and final mystery novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Marilyn Howe’s and her mother Kathleen are an inseparable duo, until one night Kathleen doesn’t come home . . . Fifteen year old Marilyn turns up alone and frightened on Inspector Ramsay’s doorstep so he 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, busy as he is on the trail of a local child abductor. Until he receives news that Mrs Howe has disappeared once more. And for the second time he is drawn into the strange relationships of the families living on the lonely Headland. Then a woman’s body is washed up on the beach . . .

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy is the third novel in the Inspector Ramsay series by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. For Dorothea Cassidy Thursdays were special. Every week she would look forward to the one day she could call her own, a welcome respite from the routine duties that being a vicar''s wife entailed. But one Thursday in June was to be more special than any other. It was the day that Dorothea Cassidy was strangled. As the small town of Otterbridge prepares for its summer carnival, Inspector Stephen Ramsay begins a painstaking reconstruction of Dorothea''s last hours. He soon discovers that she had taken on a number of deserving cases – a sick and lonely old woman, a disturbed adolescent, a compulsive gambler, a single mother with a violent boyfriend and a child in care – and even her close family have their secrets to hide. All these people are haunted, in one way or another, by Dorothea''s goodness. But which of them could have possibly wanted her dead? It is not until a second body is discovered that Ramsay starts to understand how Dorothea lived – and why she died. With the carnival festivities in full swing and dusk falling in Otterbridge, Ramsay''s murder investigation reaches its chilling climax . . . ''Nobody does unsettling undercurrents better than Ann Cleeves'' – Val McDermid, author of The Mermaids Singing

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS'' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017 The Mill on the Shore is the seventh novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. Meg Morrissey will not believe that her husband James committed suicide. A famous naturalist and founder of Green Scenes, a pioneering magazine about environmental issues, James was in high spirits because he''d finally completed his long awaited autobiography. He didn''t leave a suicide note. But even more suspiciously the record of his life''s achievement, his magnum opus, has gone missing. Troubled, Meg calls in amateur sleuths George and Molly Palmer-Jones to investigate. George and Molly''s interviews soon reveal that the life of the Morrissey family in their beautiful converted mill is not as idyllic as people are led to believe. Nor are relations with James''s ex-wife Cathy as friendly as Meg would like to make out. And, it emerges, James had fallen for another woman. Despite this, however, he appears to have had no enemies. Who could have wanted him dead? The disappearance of the autobiography is highly suspicious and George and Molly wonder whether the motive for the killing is to be found within its pages. Could the famous environmentalist have uncovered a secret so damaging someone was prepared to kill for it? Or was it something in James Morrissey''s private life that led to his death? George and Molly must try to fit together the missing pieces of information to reveal the cleverly suppressed motives which have driven someone to murder.

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetlandseries, both of which are hit TV shows—comes Silent Voices. “Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”—Louise Penny When Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the steam room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once, it’s a death from natural causes. But closer inspection reveals bruises around the victim’s throat....As she leads her team, Vera relishes the thrill she gets from running an investigation. Death has never made her feel so alive. But soon, the victim’s past reveals a shocking secret at the heart of Vera’s community, as she tries to stop a killer who wants deadly secrets kept silent. Singular, complex, and fiercely loyal, Vera has quickly become an iconic British detective loved by millions both on the page and on-screen, and Silent Voices showcases Ann Cleeves as a writer at the peak of her powers. *BONUS CONTENT: This edition of Silent Voices includes a new introduction from the author and a discussion guide

In the aftermath of a young archaeologist''s discovery of human remains that may be modern, Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate a case that is further complicated by the subsequent murder of an elderly woman.

When she finds her beloved cats and some protected wildfowl dead of illegal poison, elderly Ursula Ottway threatens to expose her landlord, politician Marcus Grenville, as an anti-preservationist. Within hours, Ursula is dead . . . by the same illegal poison. Now, as George and Molly Palmer-Jones reconstruct Ursula''s last days, it becomes clear that her sharp eyes and long memory had posed a deadly threat not only to Marcus, but to his chilly wife, his alienated offspring, and others. To bring a killer to justice, Molly and George must uproot a lifetime''s worth of secrets and expose a nest of vicious human vultures.

No one in Heppleburn has a bad word to say about Alice Parry . . . . . . But here she is, murdered in her own backyard on a bitter St. David''s Eve. And when detective Stephen Ramsay starts asking questions in the village, a more ambiguous picture begins to emerge. Yes, old Mrs. Parry was loved by everyone, but sometimes her kindness had caused trouble. Yes, her two nephews were devoted to her, but they didn''t really want her interfering in their rather complicated personal lives. Even among her neighbours, Alice Parry''s helpfulness had sometimes misfired; and after her death, tension tight as a clenched fist grips the uneasy village. Meanwhile, the suspects keep rolling in, and Heppleburn''s friendly neighbourhood killer continues his nasty piece of work .