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 . . .

Now a major ITV series, The Long Call, adapted for television by screenwriter Kelly Jones and starring Ben Aldridge.

'Matthew Venn is a keeper . . . stunning' - David Baldacci

North Devon is enjoying a rare hot summer with tourists flocking to its coast-line. 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. His daughter, Eve, is a glassblower, and the murder weapon is a shard of one of her 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 Eve is a close friend of Jonathan, his husband.

Then another body is found - killed in a similar way. Matthew finds himself treading carefully through the lies that fester at the heart of his community and a case that is dangerously close to home . . .

The Heron's Cry is the second novel in Ann Cleeves' Two Rivers series following her Sunday Times bestseller, The Long Call.


Praise for The Long Call:

'Had me hooked . . . a promising beginning to another fine chapter in the Ann Cleeves' story' - The Times

'A triumph that cements Cleeves' status as one of Britain's best crime writers' - Daily Express

'Clever, compassionate and atmospheric . . . I am already a Matthew Venn fan' - Elly Griffiths

'Cleeves combines a flair for evoking sense of place with a thoughtful, complex plot' - Mail on Sunday

'A traditional mystery of the best sort' - Guardian

Now a major ITV series, The Long Call, adapted for television by screenwriter Kelly Jones and starring Ben Aldridge.

The Long Call is the No.1 bestselling first novel in the Two Rivers series from Sunday Times bestseller and creator of Vera and Shetland, Ann Cleeves.

In North Devon, where the rivers Taw and Torridge converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his father's funeral takes place. The day Matthew turned his back on the strict evangelical community in which he grew up, he lost his family too.

Now he's back, not just to mourn his father at a distance, but to take charge of his first major case in the Two Rivers region; a complex place not quite as idyllic as tourists suppose.

A body has been found on the beach near to Matthew's new home: a man with the tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.

Finding the killer is Venn's only focus, and his team's investigation will take him straight back into the community he left behind, and the deadly secrets that lurk there.

PRAISE FOR THE LONG CALL

'Had me hooked . . . a promising beginning to another fine chapter in the Ann Cleeves' story' - The Times

'A triumph that cements Cleeves' status as one of Britain's best crime writers' - Daily Express

'Clever, compassionate and atmospheric . . . I am already a Matthew Venn fan' - Elly Griffiths

'Cleeves combines a flair for evoking sense of place with a thoughtful, complex plot' - Mail on Sunday

'A traditional mystery of the best sort' - Guardian

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017

Blue Lightning is the fourth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series featuring Detective Jimmy Perez.

NOW A MAJOR BBC DRAMA

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.

Silent Voices is the fourth book in Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series - which is now a major TV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn as Vera.

When DI Vera Stanhope finds the body of a woman in the sauna room of her local gym, she wonders briefly if, for once in her life, she's uncovered a simple death from natural causes. But a closer inspection reveals ligature marks around the victim's throat - death is never that simple...

Doing what she does best, Vera pulls her team together and sets them interviewing staff and those connected to the victim, while she and colleague, Sergeant Joe Ashworth, work to find a motive. While Joe struggles to reconcile his home life with the demands made on him by the job; Vera revels being back in charge of an investigation again. Death has never made her feel so alive...

And when they discover that the victim had worked in social services, and had been involved in a shocking case involving a young child, then it appears obvious that the two are somehow connected. Though things are never as they seem...

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017

A vivid psychological suspense novel.

A diving instructor makes a gruesome discovery in Cranwell Lake - the body of a teenager who has clearly been in the water for many years. Detective Peter Porteous is called to the scene, and deduces from missing persons files that the corpse is Michael Grey, an enigmatic and secretive young man who was reported missing by his foster parents in 1972.

As the police investigation gets under way in Cranwell, on the other side of the country prison officer Hannah Morton is about to get the shock of her life. For Michael was her boyfriend, and she was with him the night he disappeared. The news report that a body has been found brings back dreaded and long buried memories from her past...

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017

Thin Air is the sixth book in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series featuring Detective Jimmy Perez.

NOW A MAJOR BBC SERIES

A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Unst, Shetland's most northerly island, to celebrate the marriage 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 following day, Eleanor's friend Polly receives an email. It appears to be a suicide note, saying she'll never be found alive. And then Eleanor's body is discovered, lying in a small loch close to the cliff edge.

Detectives Jimmy Perez and Willow Reeves are dispatched to Unst to investigate. Before she went missing, Eleanor claimed to have seen the ghost of a local child who drowned in the 1920s. Her interest in the ghost had seemed unhealthy - obsessive, even - to her friends: an indication of a troubled mind. But Jimmy and Willow are convinced that there is more to Eleanor's death than they first thought.

Is there a secret that lies behind the myth? One so shocking that someone would kill - many years later - to protect?

DCI Vera Stanhope returns in The Darkest Evening, the ninth novel in Sunday Times bestseller Ann Cleeves' enduringly popular series.

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.

Ann Cleeves returns with a delicious short story featuring DCI Vera Stanhope.

Set before The Rising Tide, Vera goes on a day trip to Holy Island, eager to escape the pressures of work. When there she is reminded of the day decades earlier when she, as a teenager, went with her father Hector on another day trip, and the mystery woman he met there . . .

Vera already knew then that Hector kept secrets, but this time the fledgling investigator was determined to find the truth, never realizing it would mean taking her first step onto a path to becoming a detective . . .

WINNER OF THE CRIME WRITERS' ASSOCIATION DIAMOND DAGGER AWARD 2017

White Nights is the second title in Ann Cleeves' Shetland crime series featuring Detective Jimmy Perez.

NOW A MAJOR BBC DRAMA

When Shetland detective Jimmy Perez finds a body in a hut used by fishermen it seems to be a straightforward case of suicide. He recognizes the victim - a stranger with amnesia who had disrupted a local party the night before his death.

Yet this is no desperate act of anguish, but the work of a cold and calculating killer. As Perez investigates, he finds himself mired in the hidden secrets of the small Biddista community. Then another body is found.

Perez knows he must break the cycle before another death occurs. But this is a crazy time of year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems . . .

PRAISE FOR WHITE NIGHTS

"Taut, atmospheric ... will keep readers guessing until the last page." Publishers Weekly

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 . . .

The Crow Trap is the first book in Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series - which is now a major TV detective drama starring Brenda Blethyn as Vera.

Three very different women come together at isolated Baikie's Cottage on the North Pennines, to complete an environmental survey. Three women who each know the meaning of betrayal...

Rachael, the team leader, is still reeling after a double betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Anne, a botanist, sees the survey as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, a strange, uncommunicative young woman, hiding plenty of her own secrets.

Rachael is the first to arrive at the cottage, where she discovers the body of her friend, Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide - a verdict Rachael refuses to accept.

When another death occurs, a fourth woman enters the picture - the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope...