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

From CWA Diamond Dagger winner Ann Cleeves comes The Seagull, the eighth installment in the 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 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...

From the author of Shetland and VeraEven if there had been no murder, the last trip of a small band of dedicated bird-watchers aboard the Jessie Ellen would still have been news. For George Palmer-Jones and the other avid crew members achieve every bird-watcher’s dream when they sight a sea bird which has never before been recorded. In the subsequent excitement, however, no one notices the sudden absence of the most fanatical birder of them all . . . Later, Greg Franks’ corpse, the head bludgeoned, is found floating in the sea. Had it not been for Greg Franks, amateur detective George Palmer-Jones would not have been on the bird watching trip in Cornwall in the first place. He had been hired by Greg Franks’ anxious parents 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’s bird watching was too tempting to resist. Now, he must unhappily shoulder the burden of finding why the young man had been murdered. Who hated Franks enough to kill him? Almost everyone, it seems . . .From Publishers WeeklyBribery, blackmail and suspects abound in this confusing ornithological whodunit. Seasoned private detective and bird-watching enthusiast George Palmer-Jones and his wife stet commas around Molly/he has only one wife/pk Molly are hired by a distraught couple to find their errant son, coincidentally George's bird-watching colleague Greg Franks. Gregpk is traced to a seabird-watching expedition in Cornwall, but while all on board are distracted by a rare petrel,p. 31 he is murdered and his body is thrown overboard.rather than say thrown overboard with a blow to his head, why not say something a little clearer: is found washed up (if that is the case), with evidence of a suspicious blow to the head, or somesuch It soon becomes clear that Greg had gotten on the wrong side of almost everyone on the boat: competitive birdwatcher Roger Pym; his hard-drinking wifestet commas here too?pk Jane, a probation officerp. 71 ; seemingly meek conservationist Duncan James; and the seductive Rose Pengelly's spurned would-be lover Gerald Matthews. The one the other characters are mentioned without comment/mc/stet one!pk intriguing character is police inspector Claire Bingham, struggling to balance the demands of her investigative work with those of her home life. Cleeves's ( A Bird in the Hand ) dry and awkward writing slows the momentum in the first half, but pk clues multiply and intrigue mounts, culminating clues convene with rare seabirds; a little lazily written in a devastating sea-storm. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the AuthorAnn Cleeves is the author behind ITV's VERA and BBC One's SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez -- characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of 'Murder Squad', working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside. www.anncleeves.com

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 . . .

From the author of Shetland and Vera‘The huge and powerful hawk dominated the scene. Its talons pierced the woman’s flesh and the beak pointed towards her eyes . . .’ The sight is a particularly horrible shock for George Palmer-Jones, ornithologist and amateur detective. An old friend of Eleanor Masefield, a beautiful and charming widow, he is staying with his wife, Molly, at Eleanor’s family run hotel . . . On the other hand, Molly Palmer-Jones feels that Eleanor was more of a black than a merry widow – a ruthless manipulator of all those caught in her far-reaching web. Is Molly a little jealous, or is she right? And will she be in time to prevent another death?About the AuthorAnn Cleeves is the author behind ITV's VERA and BBC One's SHETLAND. She has written over twenty-five novels, and is the creator of detectives Vera Stanhope and Jimmy Perez -- characters loved both on screen and in print. Her books have now sold over 1 million copies worldwide. Ann worked as a probation officer, bird observatory cook and auxiliary coastguard before she started writing. She is a member of 'Murder Squad', working with other British northern writers to promote crime fiction. In 2006 Ann was awarded the Duncan Lawrie Dagger (CWA Gold Dagger) for Best Crime Novel, for Raven Black, the first book in her Shetland series. In 2012 she was inducted into the CWA Crime Thriller Awards Hall of Fame. Ann lives in North Tyneside. www.anncleeves.com

IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT AND ERNIE BOWLES IS STEPPING OUT--TO DIE.Ernie's big fantasy is that his blind date with a blonde divorcee will end with the two of them back at the farm, cozily shacked up. Alas, Sunday morning finds Ernie on the cold kitchen floor, all alone and strangled.A simple case of kiss-and-kill? Perhaps, but Inspector Stephen Ramsay can find no one in the entire village who liked the man, certainly not the young couple who rent his caravan nor the respectable folk on the adjoining farm. Another strangling--the even more puzzling murder of quiet housewife Val McDougal--compounds the confusion, leading Ramsay to the local center for alternative healing, where both victims were well known.Meanwhile, a murderer quietly observes the hunt, as Ramsay pursues a case in which the astonishing finale will catch even the canniest reader by the throat...From the Inside FlapIT'S SATURDAY NIGHT AND ERNIE BOWLES IS STEPPING OUT--TO DIE.Ernie's big fantasy is that his blind date with a blonde divorcee will end with the two of them back at the farm, cozily shacked up. Alas, Sunday morning finds Ernie on the cold kitchen floor, all alone and strangled.A simple case of kiss-and-kill? Perhaps, but Inspector Stephen Ramsay can find no one in the entire village who liked the man, certainly not the young couple who rent his caravan nor the respectable folk on the adjoining farm. Another strangling--the even more puzzling murder of quiet housewife Val McDougal--compounds the confusion, leading Ramsay to the local center for alternative healing, where both victims were well known.Meanwhile, a murderer quietly observes the hunt, as Ramsay pursues a case in which the astonishing finale will catch even the canniest reader by the throat...

The Moth Catcher is the seventh book in Ann Cleeves' Vera Stanhope series - now the major ITV detective drama Vera, starring Brenda Blethyn.'This case was different from anything Vera had ever worked before. Two bodies, connected but not lying together. And nothing made her feel as alive as murder.' Life seems perfect in Valley Farm, a quiet community in Northumberland. Then a shocking discovery shatters the silence. The owners of a big country house have employed a house-sitter, a young ecologist named Patrick, to look after the place while they're away. But Patrick is found dead by the side of the lane into the valley - a beautiful, lonely place to die. DI Vera Stanhope arrives on the scene, with her detectives Holly and Joe. When they look round the attic of the big house - where Patrick has a flat - she finds the body of a second man. All the two victims have in common is a fascination with moths -...

It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunters eye is drawn to a vivid splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. As Fran opens her mouth to scream, the ravens continue their deadly dance. The locals on the quiet island stubbornly focus their gaze on one manloner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police insist on opening the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the entire community. For the first time in years, Catherines neighbours nervously lock their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst

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. But then a second bodythat of beautiful young teacher Lily Marshis discovered laid out in a rock pool, the water strewn with flowers. Now Vera must work quickly to find this dramatist, this killer who is making art out of death. Clues are slow to emerge from those who had known Luke and Lily, but Vera soon finds herself drawn towards the curious group of friends who discovered Lilys body. What unites these four men and one woman? Are they really the close-knit, trustworthy unit they claim to be? As local residents are forced to share their private lives and those of their loved ones, 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

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.

An ingenious psychological suspense novel. At the isolated Baikie's Cottage on the North Pennines, three very different women come together. Three women who each know the meaning of betrayal... For team leader Rachael the project is the perfect opportunity to rebuild her confidence after a double-betrayal by her lover and boss, Peter Kemp. Botanist Anne, on the other hand, sees it as a chance to indulge in a little deception of her own. And then there is Grace, 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...