Ann Cleeves

Author profile

born

January 01, 1954 in Herefordshire, The United Kingdom

gender

female

website

http://www.anncleeves.com

genre

Mystery & Thrillers

About this author

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Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains el...more Ann grew up in the country, first in Herefordshire, then in North Devon. Her father was a village school teacher. After dropping out of university she took a number of temporary jobs - child care officer, women's refuge leader, bird observatory cook, auxiliary coastguard - before going back to college and training to be a probation officer.

While she was cooking in the Bird Observatory on Fair Isle, she met her husband Tim, a visiting ornithologist. She was attracted less by the ornithology than the bottle of malt whisky she saw in his rucksack when she showed him his room. Soon after they married, Tim was appointed as warden of Hilbre, a tiny tidal island nature reserve in the Dee Estuary. They were the only residents, there was no mains electricity or water and access to the mainland was at low tide across the shore. If a person's not heavily into birds - and Ann isn't - there's not much to do on Hilbre and that was when she started writing. Her first series of crime novels features the elderly naturalist, George Palmer-Jones. A couple of these books are seriously dreadful.

In 1987 Tim, Ann and their two daughters moved to Northumberland and the north east provides the inspiration for many of her subsequent titles. The girls have both taken up with Geordie lads. In the autumn of 2006, Ann and Tim finally achieved their ambition of moving back to the North East.

For the National Year of Reading, Ann was made reader-in-residence for three library authorities. It came as a revelation that it was possible to get paid for talking to readers about books! She went on to set up reading groups in prisons as part of the Inside Books project, became Cheltenham Literature Festival's first reader-in-residence and still enjoys working with libraries.
Ann Cleeves on stage at the Duncan Lawrie Dagger awards ceremony

Ann's short film for Border TV, Catching Birds, won a Royal Television Society Award. She has twice been short listed for a CWA Dagger Award - once for her short story The Plater, and the following year for the Dagger in the Library award.

In 2006 Ann Cleeves was the first winner of the prestigious Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award of the Crime Writers' Association for Raven Black, the first volume of her Shetland Quartet. The Duncan Lawrie Dagger replaces the CWA's Gold Dagger award, and the winner receives £20,000, making it the world's largest award for crime fiction.

Ann's success was announced at the 2006 Dagger Awards ceremony at the Waldorf Hilton, in London's Aldwych, on Thursday 29 June 2006. She said: "I have never won anything before in my life, so it was a complete shock - but lovely of course.. The evening was relatively relaxing because I'd lost my voice and knew that even if the unexpected happened there was physically no way I could utter a word. So I wouldn't have to give a speech. My editor was deputed to do it!"

The judging panel consisted of Geoff Bradley (non-voting Chair), Lyn Brown MP (a committee member on the London Libraries service), Frances Gray (an academic who writes about and teaches courses on modern crime fiction), Heather O'Donoghue (academic, linguist, crime fiction reviewer for The Times Literary Supplement, and keen reader of all crime fiction) and Barry Forshaw (reviewer and editor of Crime Time magazine).

Ann's books have been translated into sixteen languages. She's a bestseller in Scandinavia and Germany. Her novels sell widely and to critical acclaim in the United States. Raven Black was shortlisted for the Martin Beck award for best translated crime novel in Sweden in 2007.
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22 posts
Ann Cleeves's Blog

Ann Cleeves isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but she does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from her feed.

Hurrah, Vera's back!

I've just the read the last diary entry and it sounds a bit breathless. The last month has been pretty frantic too, with the London Book Fair in the middle of April and then a jaunt to Scotland to meet readers. London is the huge trade fair for the publishing and book industry. It seems that everyone involved in publishing decamps to Earl's Court, to man (or woman) the glitzy stands of the big... read more »

View more on Ann Cleeves's website »

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Published on May 01, 2012 21:31 • 7 views

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combine editions
Books by Ann Cleeves

Average rating: 3.71 · 3,253 ratings · 639 reviews · 34 distinct works

	Raven Black 3.67 avg rating — 1,253 ratings — published 1997 — 21 editions	My rating:
	White Nights (Shetland Quartet #2) 3.79 avg rating — 594 ratings — published 2005 — 16 editions	My rating:
	Red Bones (Shetland Quartet #3) 3.85 avg rating — 434 ratings — published 2009 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Blue Lightning 3.74 avg rating — 329 ratings — published 2010 — 13 editions	My rating:
	Hidden Depths 3.58 avg rating — 120 ratings — published 2007 — 11 editions	My rating:
	The Crow Trap (Vera Stanhope #1) 3.64 avg rating — 92 ratings — published 2003 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Telling Tales 3.59 avg rating — 74 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:
	Silent Voices 3.76 avg rating — 67 ratings — published 2011 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The Sleeping and the Dead 3.63 avg rating — 41 ratings — published 2001 — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Glass Room 3.50 avg rating — 30 ratings — published 2012 — 4 editions	My rating:

More books by Ann Cleeves…

Series by Ann Cleeves

Shetland Quartet (4 books)
by Ann Cleeves

3.74 avg rating — 2,603 ratings

Vera Stanhope (5 books)
by Ann Cleeves

3.62 avg rating — 383 ratings

George and Molly Palmer-Jones Mysteries (8 books)
by Ann Cleeves

3.51 avg rating — 99 ratings

Inspector Ramsey (6 books)
by Ann Cleeves

3.40 avg rating — 65 ratings

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Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Readers and Reading: What are you reading now? Finished recently? from 11/7/2009 on	68	66	Dec 03, 2009 06:08am
The Book Challenge: Kuutar's challenges 2009	26	88	Dec 30, 2009 08:45am
M/T Reading Friends: SERIES FAVORITES/NTMAs	31	52	Jan 07, 2010 07:31pm
The Mystery, Crim...: Nominations Closed: Group Read May/June 2010	15	117	Apr 27, 2010 05:32pm
The Mystery, Crim...: Nominations Closed - July/August 2010 Group Read	60	141	Jun 29, 2010 06:41pm
75 Books: Kuutar's 75 in 2010	83	79	Dec 31, 2010 10:30am
The Seasonal Read...: Winter Challenge 2010-2011 Completed Tasks (do not delete any posts)	2596	666	Feb 28, 2011 09:05pm

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