Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves

First Line: The land slipped while Jimmy Perez was standing beside the grave.

It's the dark days of winter in the Shetland Islands, and it won't stop raining. When a landslide sweeps down a hill and wrecks a house, no one worries very much because it was assumed that the building was unoccupied. When the body of a dark-haired woman is found inside, Jimmy Perez becomes obsessed with identifying her and trying to find out how she died.

I've known for a while that this series is coming to an end, and I've been torn between reading this book or saving it for when I need a read that I know is going to be good. That's how I've come to think of Ann Cleeves' writing-- as guaranteed excellence. Her books are so quiet and unassuming that readers may not realize just how tightly woven the plots are, how carefully delineated each character is, and how beautifully the landscape is described.

The mystery of the dark-haired woman takes time to tease out all the clues and make sense of them. Her identity alone drives the quiet and observant Jimmy Perez to distraction, and then there's the matter of what she was doing on Shetland to begin with as well as why someone would want her dead.

The personal lives of both Jimmy and Sandy are becoming interesting, and neither man is accustomed to thinking of a woman in his life when he's in the middle of a murder investigation. I love the omniscient point of view. By the time readers come to the end of a Cleeves novel, they've really come to know the characters because they've spent time in their heads. That points out one of the special things about this author's writing. How can readers spend so much time in the characters' heads without (1) becoming bored or (2) figuring out the identity of the killer?

Besides being on Shetland again and watching Perez solve a murder, one of the highlights of Cold Earth for me was the growth of Sandy's character. In this book, he's beginning to come into his own, and that says a lot, not only about him but of Jimmy Perez, the man who could see that this young man appeared to be slow but wasn't and took time to work with him and turn him into a first-rate police officer. It's something you don't see that often, in fiction or in real life.

If you're in the mood for tight plotting, excellent characterization, and a vivid landscape, you really need to pick up one of Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island mysteries. They are superb.

Cold Earth by Ann Cleeves

ISBN: 9781250107381

Minotaur Books © 2017

Hardcover, 400 pages

Police Procedural, #7 Shetland Islands mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from The Poisoned Pen.

 

Visiting the Land of Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island Quartet

Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island Quartet is a series of books where the land plays such an important part that it's almost like a character. I thought you might like to watch a short video showing the beauty of the Shetland Islands. My review of Red Bones follows in the next post down.

REVIEW: White Nights

Title: White Nights
Author: Ann Cleeves
Protagonist: Detective Jimmy Perez
Setting, present-day Shetland Islands, off the northern coast of Scotland
Series: #2
Rating: A

First Line:The passengers streamed ashore from the cruise ship.

One of the best things about being a member of Library Thing's Early Reviewers Program is the chance to get free books, and get them ahead of the public. White Nights was just such a book for me. I was excited because I'd enjoyed the first in the series, Raven Black. This second volume in the Shetland Island Quartet exceeded my expectations.

It's mid-summer in the Shetland Islands, a time when it never gets dark. Islanders joke about their "white nights", saying that it makes people act crazy. There may just be some truth to those attempts at humor. Detective Jimmy Perez has a new love in his life, and when he and Fran attend Fran's first art exhibit at the Herring House, an Englishman makes an emotional scene that quickly puts an end to the gathering. When the Englishman is found hanging from a rafter in a crofter's outbuilding, it doesn't take long for Perez to discover that he's got a murder--not suicide--on his hands. But no one seems to know whom the Englishman is, and when Perez calls in the police from Inverness, he and Taylor join hands once again in solving a case.

The Shetland Islands once again is a perfect setting for a mystery. The climate, the terrain, the close-knit inhabitants all join in giving the feeling of falling off the edge of the world. City dwellers may think there are no secrets in tiny villages, but those of us who have lived in such an environment know differently. In a village, your entire life can be an open book, but if you have a secret and are willing to keep it, no one else will know.

Along with her setting, Cleeves' pacing and plot are first rate. The story pulls the reader in, and although tiny clues are scattered throughout the pages, the ending still comes as a surprise. To me, the author's skill in characterization is where she really shines. The play of opposites, Perez and Taylor, in solving the crime; the egocentric grande dame, Bella Sinclair; Kenny Thomson, the crofter so in love with his wife...they all become laser-sharp in the focus of the reader's mind. The play of Perez & Taylor is brilliantly clear in this passage:

Perez considered. Taylor waited. He wanted to shout, It's a simple question, man. How long does it take to come up with an answer? He could feel the tension of waiting constricting his breathing.

"No," Perez said at last. "I never really was." And that was good enough for Taylor. Perez might irritate the shit out of him, but he was the best judge of character Taylor knew. He watched men like David Attenborough watched animals.

In many ways I enjoyed White Nights even more than Raven Black, but I know that it's a personal reaction. So much of the narrative in Raven Black centered around making fun of one of the inhabitants that it reminded me more of my grade school days than I was comfortable with. Don't let my personal reaction put you off. These two entries in Ann Cleeves' Shetland Island Quartet should not be missed.