Vera as always is Vera, slipping under people’s radar with her frumpy appearance but smart, perceptive and hard on her team although she does appreciate them even if she doesn’t know how to tell them so. Now a second member of this small group, journalist Rick Keisail has hung himself in his room on the reunion weekend. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. Also Vera comes across as an unlikely detective and I finish up wanting to give her a nudge to get moving a bit faster, just like you do when watching her on tv.

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles. It is forbidden to copy anything for publication elsewhere without written permission from the copyright holder.

It's become a ritual over fifty years to set the stage of time within increments of gains and losses.

Ann Cleeves's latest DI Vera Stanhope is a chilling and shocker of an addition to her wonderful Northumberland set series. Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook, and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added. The unassuming Vera—thickset, untidy, and sometimes blunt—endures til the very end, revealing an uncanny genius for plucking a resonant subject from the experience of each suspect with her probing intelligence and unsolicited questions—often understanding the trajectory of a person’s history far better than they do. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.In addition to questioning the four who last saw Rick and were also witnesses to events prior to Isobel's death, other vital connections may play a role in the murder and its solution.

Vera is a wonderful character, while she doesn't fit the regular mold of brilliant detective it is quickly discovered that one underestimates her at their own peril.

So begins a case that seems at first to be slowly progressing as Vera and her team try to figure out if this is a crime that stems from the last or present.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. The event, led by a young teacher named Judith Marshall, resulted in all night drinking, deep discussions, and exploration of the students' feelings.This fair-play mystery brims with fully developed suspects and motives that are hidden in plain sight. Ann Cleeve's Vera Stanhope books are the basis for the TV series 'Vera', in which the Detective Inspector is wonderfully played by Brenda Blethyn.