Blue Lightning is the fourth in a stellar suspense series from Ann Cleeves set on the Shetland Islands, the basis for the hit BBC show Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall.

Inspector Jimmy Perez takes his fiance home to Fair Isle, the tiny island he comes from, to meet his parents. The island is a magnet for bird watchers, who congregate at the local inn and lighthouse. When a local married celebrity, who had an eye for the lads, is murdered, Perez discovers that the suspects are very close to him indeed. With a sensational ending destined to create much buzz in the mystery world, Blue Lightning will thrill suspense fans everywhere.

Cold Earth is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves’ beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC, and available to stream in the US.

From Ann Cleeves, winner of the Crime Writers Association’s Diamond Dagger Award, comes Cold Earth.

In the dark days of a Shetland winter, torrential rain triggers a landslide that crosses the main road and sweeps down to the sea.

At the burial of his old friend Magnus Tait, Jimmy Perez watches the flood of mud and water smash through a house in its path. Everyone thinks the home is uninhabited, but in the wreckage he finds the body of a dark-haired woman wearing a red silk dress. Perez soon becomes obsessed with tracing her identity and realizes he must find out who she was and how she died.

Cold Earth is the seventh book in the beloved Shetland series, which is now a major success for the BBC.

Ann Cleeves returns to her critically acclaimed Shetland Island series, now a BBC television show available on streaming.

Dead Water is the next stunning mystery featuring Inspector Jimmy Perez, who readers will remember from Raven Black, White Nights, Red Bones, and Blue Lightning. When the body of a journalist is found, Detective Inspector Willow Reeves is drafted from outside to head up the investigation. Inspector Jimmy Perez has been out of the loop, but his local knowledge is needed in this case, and he decides to help Willow.

The dead journalist had left the islands years before to pursue his writing career. In his wake, he left a scandal involving a young girl. When Willow and Jimmy dig deeper, they realize that the journalist was chasing a story that many Shetlanders didn’t want to come to the surface.

In Dead Water, a triumphant continuation to her Shetland series, Ann Cleeves cements her place as one of Britain’s most successful crime writers.

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes Harbour Street.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

As the snow falls thickly on Newcastle, the shouts and laughter of Christmas revelers break the muffled silence. Detective Joe Ashworth and his daughter Jessie are swept along in the jostling crowd onto the Metro.

But when the train is stopped due to the bad weather, and the other passengers fade into the swirling snow, Jessie notices that one lady hasn’t left the train: Margaret Krukowski has been fatally stabbed.

Arriving at the scene, DI Vera Stanhope is relieved to have an excuse to escape the holiday festivities. As she stands on the silent, snow-covered station platform, Vera feels a familiar buzz of anticipation, sensing that this will be a complex and unusual case.

Then, just days later, a second woman is murdered. Vera knows that to find the key to this new killing she needs to understand what had been troubling Margaret so deeply before she died – before another life is lost. She can feel in her bones that there’s a link. Retracing Margaret’s final steps, Vera finds herself searching deep into the hidden past of this seemingly innocent neighborhood, led by clues that keep revolving around one street…Harbour Street.

Told with piercing prose and a forensic eye, Ann Cleeves’ gripping novel explores what happens when a community closes ranks to protect their own-and at what point silent witnesses become complicit.

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes Hidden Depths.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

On a hot summer on the Northumberland coast, 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. But now, Vera must work quickly to find this killer who is making art out of death. As local residents are forced to share their private lives, sinister secrets are slowly unearthed.

And all the while the killer remains in their midst, waiting for an opportunity to prepare another beautiful, watery grave…

The basis for the hit series “Shetland” now airing on PBS.

Winner of Britain’s coveted Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award, Ann Cleeves’s Raven Black introduces a dazzling suspense series to U.S. mystery readers.

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter’s eye is drawn to a splash of color on the frozen ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbor, Catherine Ross.

The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one man–loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when detective Jimmy Perez and his colleagues from the mainland insist on opening out the investigation, a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine’s neighbors nervously lock their doors, while a killer lives on in their midst.

Red Bones marks the third in a stellar suspense series set on the Shetland Islands from bestselling author Ann Cleeves–the basis for the hit BBC show Shetland, starring Douglas Henshall.

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 Ann Cleeves’s popular series detective Jimmy Perez is called in. As claustrophobic mists swirl around the island, Inspector Perez finds himself totally in the dark.

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, 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.

“Demonstrating singular adeptness with mood and pacing, narrator Julia Franklin shines in this character-rich mystery set in northern England…Franklin’s performance is direct and punchy, matching the speed and shrewdness of Vera’s first-rate mind.” — AudioFile Magazine

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes Telling Tales.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

It has been ten years since 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.

For one young woman, Emma Bennett, the revelation brings back haunting memories of her vibrant best friend–and of that fearful winter’s day when she had discovered her body lying cold in a ditch.

As Inspector Vera Stanhope makes fresh enquiries on the peninsula and villagers are hauled back to a time they hoped to forget, tensions begin to mount. But are people afraid of the killer or of their own guilty pasts?
With each person’s story revisited, the Inspector begins to suspect that some deadly secrets are threatening to unfurl…

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes The Crow Trap, the first in the Vera Stanhope series.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

Three very different women come together to complete an environmental survey on the Northumberland countryside. Three women who, in some way or another, know the meaning of betrayal….For team leader Rachael Lambert the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne Preece, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace Fulwell, a strange, uncommunicative young woman with plenty of her own secrets to hide…

When Rachael arrives at the cottage, however, she is horrified to discover the body of her friend Bella Furness. Bella, it appears, has committed suicide–a verdict Rachael finds impossible to accept.

Only when the next death occurs does a fourth woman enter the picture–the unconventional Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope, who must piece together the truth from these women’s tangled lives in The Crow Trap.

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes the stunning new Vera Stanhope novel, The Darkest Evening.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

“As a huge fan of both the Shetland and Vera series of books, I had high expectations for Cleeves’ latest. . . . A stunning debut for Cleeves’ latest crimefighter.”–David Baldacci on The Long Call

On the first snowy night of winter, Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope sets off for her home in the hills. Though the road is familiar, she misses a turning and soon becomes lost and disorientated. A car has skidded off the narrow road in front of her, its door left open, and she stops to help. There is no driver to be seen, so Vera assumes that the owner has gone to find help. But a cry calls her back: a toddler is strapped in the back seat.

Vera takes the child and, driving on, she arrives at a place she knows well. Brockburn is a large, grand house in the wilds of Northumberland, now a little shabby and run down. It’s also where her father, Hector, grew up. Inside, there’s a party in full swing: music, Christmas lights and laughter. Outside, unbeknownst to the revelers, a woman lies dead in the snow.

As the blizzard traps the group deep in the freezing Northumberland countryside, Brockburn begins to give up its secrets, and as Vera digs deeper into her investigation, she also begins to uncover her family’s complicated past.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books

A USA Today Bestseller!

Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–returns with a darkly delicious short story, “The Girls on the Shore”, featuring DI Matthew Venn from the Two Rivers series.

It was winter. Cold and clear, a different sort of day for this coast where the westerly winds usually blew rain and cloud.

Detective Inspector Matthew Venn is standing by his kitchen window when he first spots them. Two young girls, facing away from him, seemingly staring towards something in the distance. They are holding hands, and they are alone.

Though not a natural with children, Matthew knows he must find out why the girls are here, on a school day, unsupervised. And so he meets Olivia and Imogen, a pair of sisters whose secrets Matthew must uncover if he hopes to get them home.

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes The Glass Room.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

DI Vera Stanhope is not one to make friends easily, but her hippy neighbors keep her well-supplied in homebrew and conversation, and somehow bonds have formed. When one of them goes missing, Vera tracks the young woman down to the Writer’s House, a country retreat where aspiring authors work on their stories. Things get complicated when a body is discovered, and Vera’s neighbor is found with a knife in her hand.

Calling in the team, Vera knows that she should hand the case over. She’s too close to the main suspect. But the investigation is too tempting, and she’s never been one to follow the rules. Somewhere there is a killer who has taken murder off the page and is making it real . . .

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

“Jack Holden demonstrates his full talents in this mystery, bringing the extensive cast of characters in this small and close-knit community in Devon to life with his strong narration.” –Audiofile

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

“Narrator Ben Aldridge gives listeners the perfect introduction to Matthew Venn…it’s a smashing start to a third series by Cleeves.” — AudioFile Magazine

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!

The Long Call from Ann Cleeves–bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes the first in a gripping new series, told with deep compassion and searing insight.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

In North Devon, where two rivers converge and run into the sea, Detective Matthew Venn stands outside the church as his estranged father’s funeral takes place. On the day Matthew left the strict evangelical community he grew up in, he lost his family too.

Now, as he turns and walks away again, he receives a call from one of his team. A body has been found on the beach nearby: a man with a tattoo of an albatross on his neck, stabbed to death.

The case calls Matthew back to the people and places of his past, as deadly secrets hidden at their hearts are revealed, and his new life is forced into a collision course with the world he thought he’d left behind.

A PEOPLE MAGAZINE BEST BOOK OF FALL 2019

From Ann Cleeves comes The Moth Catcher, the latest audiobook in the Vera Stanhope mystery series, the inspiration behind the hit TV series, Vera.

Life seems perfect in the quiet community of Valley Farm. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist, to look after the place while they’re away. But his dead body is found by the side of the lane–a lonely place to die.

When DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, she finds the body of a second man. What the two victims seem to have in common is a fascination with studying moths–and with catching these beautiful, intriguing creatures.

The others who live in Valley Farm have secrets too: Lorraine’s calm demeanor belies a more complex personality; Annie and Sam’s daughter, Lizzie, is due to be released from prison; and Nigel watches, silently, every day, from his window. As Vera is drawn into the claustrophobic world of this increasingly strange community, she realizes that there may be many deadly secrets trapped there . . .

“Janine Birkett’s captivating narration does full justice to Ann Cleeves’s masterful storytelling in the latest installment of this mystery series.”-AudioFile Magazine on The Rising Tide

From Ann Cleeves—New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows—comes the stunning tenth Vera Stanhope audiobook, The Rising Tide, a powerful story about guilt, betrayal, and the longheld secrets people keep.

“Ann Cleeves is one of my favorite mystery writers.”–Louise Penny

For fifty years a group of friends have been meeting regularly for reunions on Holy Island, celebrating the school trip where they met, and the friend that they lost to the rising causeway tide five years later. 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 . . .

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

“Janine Birkett’s marvelous narration enhances this riveting mystery, part of the Vera Stanhope series, set on the majestic northeast coast of England…Listeners will appreciate Birkett’s handling of the dry humor, particularly Stanhope’s” — AudioFile Magazine

From Ann Cleeves–New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, both of which are hit TV shows–comes The Seagull.

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 key part in his downfall.

Now, Brace promises Vera information about the disappearance of Robbie Marshall, a notorious wheeler-dealer who disappeared in the mid-nineties, if she will look out for his daughter and grandchildren. He tells her that Marshall is dead, and that 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’, regulars at a glamorous nightclub called The Seagull. Hector had been one of the last people to see Marshall alive. As the past begins to collide dangerously with the present, Vera confronts her prejudices and unwanted memories to dig out the truth . . .

The Seagull is a searing novel by Sunday Times bestselling author Ann Cleeves, about corruption deep in the heart of a community, and fragile, and fracturing, family relationships.

“Definitely one of the best crime novels of 2017.”–Reviewing the Evidence

Ann Cleeves is back with Thin Air, the sixth book in her beloved Shetland series, which is now a hit television show starring Douglas Henshall.

A group of old university friends leave the bright lights of London and travel to Shetland to celebrate the marriage of one of their friends. But, one of them, Eleanor, disappears–apparently into thin air. It’s mid-summer, a time of light nights and unexpected mists. 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 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?

Ann Cleeves’ striking new novel is a quintessential whodunit with surprises at every turn.

A stunning second installment in the acclaimed Shetland Island Quartet, White Nights is sure to garner American raves for international sensation Ann Cleeves. This series is the basis for the hit BBC show Shetland,starring Douglas Henshall, which attracted over 12 million viewers in its first two nights on the air.

Raven Black received crime fiction’s highest monetary honor, the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award. Now Detective Jimmy Perez is back in an electrifying sequel.

It’s midsummer in the Shetland Islands, the time of the white nights, when birds sing at midnight and the sun never sets. Artist Bella Sinclair throws an elaborate party to launch an exhibition of her work at The Herring House, a gallery on the beach.

The party ends in farce when one the guests, a mysterious Englishman, bursts into tears and claims not to know who he is or where he’s come from. The following day the Englishman is found hanging from a rafter, and Detective Jimmy Perez is convinced that the man has been murdered. He is reinforced in this belief when Roddy, Bella’s musician nephew, is murdered, too.

But the detective’s relationship with Fran Hunter may have clouded his judgment, for this is a crazy time of the year when night blurs into day and nothing is quite as it seems.

“Narrator Kenny Blyth transports listeners to the Shetland Islands with his delightful and easily understood Scots brogue.” — AudioFile Magazine on Cold Earth

Wild Fire is the much-anticipated final audiobook in Ann Cleeves’s beloved Shetland Island series, now a major television triumph starring Douglas Henshall.

The betrayal of those closest burns most of all . . .

Hoping for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life.

But when a young nanny’s body is found hanging in the barn beside their home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. He knows it will mean his boss, Willow Reeves, returning to run the investigation, and confronting their complex relationship.

With families fracturing and long-hidden lies emerging, Jimmy faces the most disturbing case of his career.

Praise for the Shetland Island series:

“Nothing short of riveting.” –Louise Penny on Blue Lightning