Best Selling Books by Ann Cleeves

Vera Stanhope, star of ITV''s Vera, returns in the tenth novel in number one bestseller Ann Cleeves'' acclaimed series.Fifty years ago, a group of teenagers spent a weekend on Holy Island, forging a bond that has lasted a lifetime. Now, they still return every five years to celebrate their friendship, and remember the friend they lost to the rising waters of the causeway at the first reunion.Now, when one of them is found hanged, Vera is called in. Learning that the dead man had recently been fired after misconduct allegations, Vera knows she must discover what the friends are hiding, and whether the events of many years before could have led to murder then, and now . . .But with the tide rising, secrets long-hidden are finding their way to the surface, and Vera and the team may find themselves in more danger than they could have believed possible . . .

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but she has more tolerance for her hippy neighbours than most. When one of them goes missing she feels duty-bound to find out what happened. It''s an easy job to track the young woman down to a country retreat where aspiring authors gather to work through their novels. It gets complicated when a body is discovered and Vera''s neighbour is found with a knife in her hand. Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over to someone else but the investigation is too tempting. Then another body is found, and Vera suspects that someone is playing games with her.

Driving home during a swirling blizzard, Vera Stanhope''s only thought is to get there quickly. But the snow is so heavy, she becomes disoriented and loses her way. Ploughing on, she sees a car slewed off the road ahead of her. With the driver''s door open, Vera assumes the driver has sought shelter but when she inspects the car she is shocked to find a young toddler strapped in the back seat. Afraid they will freeze, Vera takes the child and drives on, arriving at Brockburn, a run-down stately home she immediately recognizes as the house her father Hector grew up in. Inside Brockburn a party is in full swing, with music and laughter to herald the coming Christmas. But outside in the snow, a young woman lies dead and Vera knows immediately she has a new case. Could this woman be the child''s mother, and if so, what happened to her? A classic country house mystery with a contemporary twist, Ann Cleeves returns with a brilliant Vera novel to savour.

Too Good To Be True is a gripping Quick Read from Ann Cleeves, featuring Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez from the bestselling Shetland series. When young teacher Anna Blackwell is found dead in her home, the police think her death was suicide or a tragic accident. After all, Stonebridge is a quiet country village in the Scottish Borders, where murders just don''t happen. But Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez soon arrives from far-away Shetland when his ex-wife, Sarah, asks him to look into the case. The local gossips are saying that her new husband, Tom, was having an affair with Anna. Could Tom have been involved with her death? Sarah refuses to believe it - but needs proof. Anna had been a teacher. She must have loved kids. Would she kill herself knowing there was nobody to look after her daughter? She had seemed happier than ever before she died. And to Perez, this suggests not suicide, but murder . . .

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 .

Ten years ago Jeanie Long was charged with the murder of fifteen-year old Abigail Mantel. Now residents of the East Yorkshire village of Elvet are disturbed to hear of new evidence proving Jeanie''s innocence. Abigail''s killer is still at large. As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula, villagers are hauled back to a time they would rather forget. Inevitably, tensions begin to mount, but are people afraid of the killer, or of their own guilty pasts?

Murder can strike more than once...Blue Lightning is the fourth book in Ann Cleeves'' Shetland series - which is now the major BBC1 drama starring Douglas Henshall, SHETLAND. With the autumn storms raging, Fair Isle feels cut off from the rest of the world. Trapped, tension is high and tempers become frayed. Enough to drive someone to murder . . . A woman''s body is discovered at the renowned Fair Isles bird observatory, with feathers threaded through her hair. The islanders react with fear and anger. Detective Jimmy Perez has no support from the mainland and must investigate the old-fashioned way. He soon realizes that this is no crime of passion - but a murder of cold and calculated intention. There''s no way off the island until the storms abate - and so the killer is also trapped, just waiting for the opportunity to strike again. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones and Dead Water. Ann Cleeves'' Vera Stanhope series (ITV television drama VERA) contains five titles, of which The Glass Room is the most recent.

Ann Cleeves makes a much-anticipated return with another investigation for her brilliant detective DCI Vera Stanhope, brought to life in the hit TV series Vera by Brenda Blethyn.

The Seagull is Ann Cleeves'' searing eighth novel in the bestselling Vera Stanhope series, about corruption deep in the heart of a community, and about fragile, and fracturing, family relationships.A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper - and Vera played a part in his downfall. Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, his body buried close to St Mary''s Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two. This cold case takes Vera back in time, and very close to home, as Brace and Marshall, along with a mysterious stranger known only as ''the Prof'', were close friends of Hector, her father. Together, they were ''the Gang of Four'', and Hector had been one of the last people to see Marshall alive. Vera must confront her prejudices and unwanted memories to dig out the truth, as the past begins to collide dangerously with the present . . .

The sixth novel in the Vera series Harbour Street is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves'' Vera series--which is now a major ITV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn. Also available in the Vera Stanhope series are The Crow Trap, Telling Tales, Hidden Depths, Silent Voices and The Glass Room. Ann Cleeves'' Shetland series (BBC television drama Shetland) contains five titles, of which Dead Water is the most recent.

Thin Air is the next book in Ann Cleeves'' Shetland series - which is now a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall as detective Jimmy Perez. A group of old university friends are in Unst, Shetland''s most northerly island, to celebrate the wedding of one of their friends to a Shetlander. But late on the night of the wedding party one of them, Eleanor, disappears -- apparently into thin air. It''s mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. The next day Eleanor''s best friend Polly receives an email from her saying she''ll never be found alive. And so it seems, because the woman''s body is found, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge. Before she disappeared Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of Peerie Lizzie, a child who was drowned close by in the 1920s. And as the investigation progresses Polly feels that she too is being haunted. The case takes Jimmy Perez out of his comfort zone to London, to talk to Eleanor''s colleagues and friends. But the final solution to the mystery takes him back to Shetland once more. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning and Dead Water. Ann Cleeves'' Vera Stanhope series series (ITV television drama VERA) contains six titles, of which Harbour Street is the most recent.

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

New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves returns with The Heron''s Cry, the extraordinary follow-up to The Long Call, soon to be a major TV series, alongside her two hit TV shows Shetland and Vera. "In Matthew Venn, Ann has created a complex, daring, subtle character." --Louise Penny A complex mystery full of surprises . . . this character-driven exploration of people''s darkest flaws is a sterling example of Cleeves'' formidable talents. --Kirkus Reviews North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coastline. Detective Matthew Venn is called out to a rural crime scene at the home of a group of artists. What he finds is an elaborately staged murder--Dr Nigel Yeo has been fatally stabbed with a shard of one of his glassblower daughter''s broken vases. Dr. Yeo seems an unlikely murder victim. He''s a good man, a public servant, beloved by his daughter. Matthew is unnerved, though, to find that she is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband. Then another body is found--killed in a similar way. Matthew soon finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home. DI Matthew Venn returns in The Heron''s Cry, in Ann Cleeves powerful next novel, proving once again that she is a master of her craft. A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books

New York Times bestseller Ann Cleeves returns with a delicious short story featuring DCI Vera Stanhope as a young woman, and also including an excerpt from the next Vera Stanhope novel, The Rising Tide. "Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers."-Louise Penny A rare day off from policing leads DCI Vera Stanhope across the tidal causeway to Holy Island, the lure of crab sandwiches there too hard to resist. While on the island, she is reminded of the day decades before when, as a teenager, she went with her father Hector on another day trip. The day she watched him meet with a mystery woman on the beach... Vera already knew then that Hector kept secrets, but this time the fledging investigator was determined to find the truth of why he was meeting the woman on the island, never realizing it would mean taking her first step onto a path to becoming a detective... In this wonderful short story, Ann Cleeves shows us the origins of Vera as a detective, and showcases the setting for her next novel, The Rising Tide.

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote The Sleeping and the Dead, a vivid standalone psychological suspense novel—now in print in the US. Detective Peter Porteous is called to Cranwell Lake where the body of a teenager has been discovered. After trawling through the missing persons files, he comes to the conclusion that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972. The news report that a body has been found leaves prison officer Hannah Morton in shock. Michael had been her boyfriend, and she had been with him the night he disappeared. And now the discovery is bringing back dreaded and long buried memories from her past . . .

Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves'' Shetland series - a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall. In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity. Then it emerges that she was already dead before the landslide hit the house. Perez knows he must find out who she was, and how she died. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air.

Poliskommissarie Matthew Venn står utanför kyrkan i det lilla samhället Barnstaple i norra Devon och betraktar sin fars begravning på avstånd. Samma dag som Matthew vände ryggen åt den strikta frikyrkliga församling han växt upp i, förlorade han också kontakten med sin familj. Nu är han tillbaka i sina barndomstrakter, inte bara för att sörja sin far, utan för att ta sig an sitt första stora fall i polisregionen Two rivers. En man har hittats mördad på stranden nära Matthews nya hem: han har blivit knivhuggen, och han har en albatross tatuerad i nacken. Matthew lägger all sin kraft på att hitta gärningsmannen, och det blir en jakt som tar honom och hans team tillbaka till människorna från förr, och de livsfarliga hemligheter de döljer.

A journalist working on a story. Now his murder is a headline. Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate in Dead Water, the fifth Shetland mystery from Ann Cleeves. Now a major BBC One drama, Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall. When the body of a journalist is found in a traditional Shetland boat, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted in to head up the investigation. Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed and he decides to help the inquiry. Originally a Shetlander, the journalist had left the islands years before to make a name for himself in London, leaving a scandal in his wake. He had few friends in Shetland, so why was he back? When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that he was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn''t want to come to the surface. One that must have been significant enough to kill him for . . . Continue the captivating crime series with Thin Air.

Helena och Daniel Fleming flyttar med sina barn till den avlägset belägna orten Deltaness på Shetlandsöarna för att få en nystart. Sonen Christopher har autism och föräldrarna hoppas att en mindre skola ska ge honom bättre stöd än han fått på sin förra skola i London. Men familjen märker snart att alla i det lilla samhället inte är lika glada över deras ankomst. Någon skickar Helena små teckningar av en streckgubbe i en snara. Det visar sig att den tidigare ägaren av familjen Flemings nya hus begick självmord genom att hänga sig i ladan på gården. När Emma Shearer, barnflicka hos traktens läkare, hittas hängd i samma lada rubriceras dödsfallet som mord, inte självmord. Inom kort sprids skvallret om hennes förhållande med Daniel som en löpeld, och fallet hamnar på Jimmy Perez bord. Kommer Perez att lyckas hitta Emma Shearers mördare innan familjen Fleming har krossats för alltid? Vild eld är den totalt sett åttonde boken i Ann Cleeves Shetlandserie och del fyra i den nya kvartetten. Cleeves böcker ligger till grund för teveserien Shetland, som sänts på SVT.

The much-anticipated eighth novel in Ann Cleeves'' bestselling Vera Stanhope series.A visit to her local prison brings DI Vera Stanhope face to face with an old enemy: former detective superintendent, and now inmate, John Brace. Brace was convicted of corruption and involvement in the death of a gamekeeper - and Vera played a part in his downfall. Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, his body is buried close to St Mary''s Island in Whitley Bay. However, when a search team investigates, officers find not one skeleton, but two. This cold case case takes Vera back in time, and very close to home, as Brace and Marshall, along with a mysterious stranger known only as ''the Prof'', were close friends of Hector, her father. Together, they were ''the Gang of Four'', and Hector had been one of the last people to see Marshall alive. Vera must confront her prejudices and unwanted memories to dig out the truth, as the past begins to collide dangerously with the present... The Seagull is Ann Cleeves'' searing new novel, about corruption deep in the heart of a community, and about fragile, and fracturing, family relationships.

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now in print for the first time in the US. 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 makes life worth living for many of the birders on the island. Then a fire in Charlie Todd’s cottage adds to their distress, followed by a fierce storm. The next morning, the birders find Charlie dead in a bird hide. Suddenly their pleasant September weekend assumes 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 a killer within their midst.

CWA Diamond Dagger winner Ann Cleeves’s Shetland Island series has long been beloved both by fans who have been intrigued by Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez from the very first page, and converts drawn in by the brilliant BBC series Shetland. Set in the most northerly community in the UK, the islands have a stark beauty that provides the backdrop for Jimmy’s quietly intense cases. Here together for the first time in a fantastic low-priced eBook bundle are the first four Shetland Island mysteries: Raven Black: Winner of the coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Raven Black begins on New Year’s Eve with lonely outcast Magnus Tait. When the body of a murdered girl is discovered, suspicion falls on Magnus, and Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go. White Nights: The launch of an exhibition at The Herring House art gallery is disturbed by a stranger who bursts into tears then claims not to remember who he is or where he comes from. The next day he’s found dead, and Jimmy must follow the winding trail the stranger has left behind to its conclusion. Red Bones: When a young archaeologist discovers a set of human remains, the locals are intrigued. Is it an ancient find—or a more contemporary mystery? Then an elderly woman is fatally shot, and Jimmy Perez is called in. In Red Bones, a claustrophobic mist swirls around the Shetland Islands, and Inspector Perez finds himself totally in the dark. Blue Lightning: Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez brings his fiancée home to Fair Isle, a birder’s paradise, but when a woman’s body is discovered at the island’s bird observatory, the investigation is hampered by a raging storm that renders the island totally isolated. Jimmy has to find clues the old-fashioned way, and he has to do it quickly. There’s a killer on the island just waiting for the chance to strike again.

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now in print for the first time in the US. A rare and unrecorded sea bird captures all the birders attention while right under their noses the most fanatical birder of them all disappears . . . only for Greg Franks’ corpse to later be found floating in the sea, the head bludgeoned. Had it not been for Greg, amateur detective George Palmer-Jones would not have been on the bird watching trip in Cornwall to the first place. Greg Franks’ anxious parents had hired him to try and persuade their errant son to return home. George would have turned the case down flat but the offer of a free weekend of bird watching was too tempting to resist. Now, he must shoulder the burden of discovering why the young man had been murdered. Who hated Franks enough to kill him? It seems almost everyone on the trip has a motive and George has his work cut out for him.

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS'' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017 Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves'' Shetland series featuring Detective Jimmy Perez, now a major BBC series. In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main Lerwick-Sumburgh road and sweeps down to the sea. At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and peaty water smash through a croft house in its path. Everyone thinks the croft is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. In his mind, she shares his Mediterranean ancestry and soon he becomes obsessed with tracing her identity. Then it emerges that she was already dead before the landslide hit the house. Perez knows he must find out who she was, and how she died. Also available in the Shetland series are Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, Blue Lightning, Dead Water and Thin Air. PRAISE FOR ANN CLEEVES "Cleeves is quietly carving out a reputation as the new Queen of Crime" Sunday Mirror

Poliskommissarie Matthew Venn kallas till en spektakulär mordplats i en konstnärsateljé. Den före detta läkaren Nigel Yeo har huggits till döds med en sylvass glasskärva. Yeo framstår som ett osannolikt mordoffer. Trots det har någon velat honom ont, någon som inte drar sig för ytterligare dåd. Utredningen för Matthew in i en härva av lögner som gör balansgången mellan professionellt och privat allt svårare.

Before Shetland and Vera, Ann Cleeves wrote the George and Molly Palmer-Jones series following remarkable mysteries in a birdwatching community—now in print for the first time in the US. In England’s birdwatching paradise, a new breed has been sighted—a murderer . . . Young Tom French is 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 decides quietly to look into the brutal crime, discovers mixed feelings aplenty. Still, he remains 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’ flock from Norfolk to Scotland to the Scilly Isles in response to rumors of rare sightings, George—with help from his lovely wife, Molly—gradually discerns the true markings of a killer. All he has to do is prove it . . . before the murderer strikes again.

Der Auftakt der englischen Krimi-Reihe um die eigenwillige Kommissarin Vera Stanhope Ein heißer Sommerabend an der Küste Northumberlands. Wie hatte sich Julie Armstrong auf ihr erstes Date seit Jahren gefreut. Doch bei ihrer Rückkehr erwartet sie ein schreckliches Bild: Ihr Sohn Luke liegt tot in der Badewanne, auf dem Wasser schwimmen Blüten. Wenig später treibt die attraktive Referendarin Lily im Teich inmitten von Blumen – ein schauriges Gemälde. Die inszenierten Morde geben Kommissarin Vera Stanhope und ihrem Kollegen Joe Ashworth Rätsel auf. Doch sie wissen: Der Mörder wird wieder zuschlagen - bis das Kunstwerk des Todes vollendet ist ... «Ann Cleeves wirft einen Blick hinter die heile Fassade einer Dorfgemeinschaft, hinter der sich Abgründe auftun.» Val McDermid

A Shetland című, skót BAFTA-díjas tévésorozat alapjául szolgáló thriller. CWA Aranytőr-díj (2006) A magányos, kiközösített Magnus Tait vendégeket vár szilveszter estéjén, de azok csak nem jönnek. Másnap reggel meggyilkolt tizenéves lány holttestét találják meg a közelben, és a gyanú Magnusra terelődik. Jimmy Perez felügyelő nyomozni kezd, és a szálak a Shetland-szigetek múltjába vezetnek, olyan ügyek közé, amelyeket jobb nem feszegetni. „A fotelhez szögez. Csodálatosan megírt történet.” - Val McDermid „Ott munkál benne mindaz a feszültség, ami azokra a helyekre jellemző, ahol mindenki ismer mindenkit, és semmi nem merül feledésbe.” - Times Literary Supplement „Hideglelős. Vérfagyasztó.” - Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review „Az év egyik legjobb krimije. Ne hagyják ki.” - Rocky Mountain News „Kifinomult, baljós pszichológiai thriller. Cleeves nemzedékének egyik legjobbja.” - Globe and Mail „Ann jellemábrázolás tekintetében a műfaj egyik legjobbja. Ritkán fordul elő, hogy a helyszín ilyen szépen kirajzolódik egy thrillerből.” - Daily Express „Életszerű, jellegzetes szereplők, szokatlan végkimenetel. Tökéletes regény.” - Tribune „Cleeves igazán kifinomult alkotó - ez egy mesterien megformált, átgondolt regény.” - Sunday Telegraph „Cleeves hihetetlenül jó - mind atmoszféra, mind cselekmény és karakterek tekintetében.” - Times A skót vidékeken játszódó Shetland sorozat eddig 5. évadig jutott el és vált a történetei és karakterei által a nézők és az olvasók kedvencévé. ANN CLEEVES New York Times bestsellerszerző, akinek könyvei világszerte több millió példányban keltek el. 2017-ben a CWA, a brit Detektívregényírók Szövetsége Gyémánttőr díjjal tüntette ki. Cleeves regényei alapján készültek a nagysikerű Shetland és Vera tévésorozatok.

Deux cadavres retrouvés dans le paisible comté du Northemburland.. Tous deux entourés de pétales de fleurs. Une énigme à résoudre pour l''inspectrice Vera Stanhope, héroïne de la série à succès diffusée sur France 3. Un corps couvert de fleurs : Vera débusquera-t-elle l''assassin ? Il fait chaud, ce jour-là, sur les côtes du Northumberland. Revenue d''une virée en ville, Julie Armstrong n''aurait jamais cru faire une aussi macabre découverte : son fils étranglé dans sa baignoire, le corps couvert de fleurs sauvages...Ce meurtre d''"esthète" laisse l''inspectrice Vera Stanhope et son équipe sous le choc. Lorsqu''un second corps est découvert dans un décor similaire, Vera sait vite ce qu''elle doit faire pour débusquer le criminel.Rares sont les indices susceptibles d''aiguiller Vera, mais la voilà intriguée par le groupe d''amis qui a découvert le second corps. Qu''est-ce qui relie ces quatre hommes et cette femme ? Pendant ce temps, le tueur reste dans l''ombre, attendant l''occasion de reproduire son œuvre d''art morbide...Solitaire et grande gueule, plus portée sur le single malt que sur l''Earl Grey, le personnage d''inspectrice créé par Ann Cleeves a rejoint Poirot et Mrs Marple au panthéon des détectives de caractère !

En vennegjeng fra London reiser til Unst, den nordligste av Shetlandsøyene, for å feire bryllup. Sent på kvelden forsvinner den ene av dem, Eleanor, tilsynelatende i løse luften. Dagen etter får Eleanors venninne Polly en epost som ser ut til å inneholde Eleanors selvmordsbrev. Så dukker liket hennes opp, i en liten innsjø nær klippekanten. Etterforskerne Jimmy Perez og Willow Reeves kommer til Unst. Før hun forsvant hadde Eleanor påstått å ha sett spøkelset til et barn fra øya som druknet på 1920-tallet. Eleanor ble så interessert i den gamle legenden at vennene hennes oppfattet det som usunt, og som et uttrykk for at hun slet med mentale problemer. Men Jimmy og Willow er overbevist om at Eleanors død innbefatter mer enn først antatt. Finnes det en hemmelighet bak legenden, og kan hemmeligheten være av en slik art at noen – mange år senere – kunne tenkes å drepe for å beskytte den?

At an isolated cottage, three women come together for an environmental survey: team leader Rachael Lambert, betrayed by her lover; botanist Anne Preece, indulging in some deception of her own; and Grace Fulwell with secrets of her own. And Inspector Vera Stanhope, investigating a suicide.

IN A BIRD WATCHER''S PARADISE, MURDER COMES HOME TO ROOST. Among the birders from around the world gathered for the dazzling spring avian migration on the Texas coast are three old friends from England--Rob, Mick, and Oliver--celebrating the twentieth anniversary of their first unforgettable trip to High Island. But the party''s over when Mick--the introvert who surprisingly got the girl they all wanted years ago--is murdered. The police tag Rob for the crime, but shrewd birder-investigator George Palmer-Jones focuses his attention on some odd ducks among the English contingent. Meanwhile, back home in England, George''s wife, Molly, digs up the dirt on a save-the-earth society. And on High Island, a killer finds that one murder is not enough. . . .

A hot summer on the Northumberland coast, and Julie Armstrong arrives home from a night out to find her son murdered. Luke has been strangled, laid out in a bath of water and covered with wild flowers. This stylized murder scene has Inspector Vera Stanhope and her team intrigued.

When local uproar over a proposed housing development results in murder, Inspector Ramsay has the pressure on him to second-guess each possible culprit.

The tragic suicide of a well-known naturalist draws his family together - or does it?.

The eighth book in Ann Cleeves'' bestselling Shetland series - a major BBC One drama starring Douglas Henshall.